Language Skills : Traditions, Transitions and Ways Forward [1 ed.] 9781443855891, 9781443853187

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Language Skills

Language Skills: Traditions, Transitions and Ways Forward

Edited by

Halina Chodkiewicz and Magdalena TrepczyĔska

Language Skills: Traditions, Transitions and Ways Forward, Edited by Halina Chodkiewicz and Magdalena TrepczyĔska This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Halina Chodkiewicz, Magdalena TrepczyĔska and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5318-6, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5318-7

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Preface ......................................................................................................... x Section One: Fundamental Background Issues Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 Evolution in Understanding the Notion of Language as Skill in Foreign Language Didactics Maria Dakowska Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 18 From Communicative Competence to Intercultural Communicative Competence: A New Proposal for Language Skills Teresa Siek-Piskozub Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 34 New Developments in the Conceptualisation of English for Academic Purposes Skills Anna NiĪegorodcew Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 49 Helping Learners to Perform Skillfully: What Non-language Skill Teachers Can Contribute Keith Johnson Section Two: Spoken Interaction Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 62 Studying the Spoken Competence of 15-Year-Olds Melanie Ellis

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Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 81 The Development of Speaking and Listening Skills in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Katarzyna Papaja Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 95 Managing Collaborative Speaking Tasks: Pedagogic and Naturalistic Discourse in Trainees’ Instructional Talk Ewa Guz, Piotr Steinbrich Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 119 A Place for Teacher-Talk in Interactive Foreign Language Classrooms Pauline Foster Section Three: Sound Perception and Production Skills Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 134 The Assessment of Prepared Talks: Interface between Speaking and Pronunciation Marta Nowacka Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 162 The Influence of Pronunciation Learning Strategies on Vowel Production in Free Speech by English Students Katarzyna Rokoszewska Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 179 Between Non-Native Speaking and Native Listening Skills: Perceived Phonetic Properties of Foreign-Accented Polish Jolanta Szpyra-Kozáowska, Marek Radomski Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 196 Priorities in Teaching English Pronunciation to Poles: Empirical Evidence from Scottish Native Listeners Agnieszka Bryáa-Cruz Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 214 Musical Aptitude and L2 Speech Perception: A Study of Word Recognition by Adult Students of English Tomasz NiedĨwiedĨ

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Section Four: Reading Contexts and Purposes Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 238 Explaining the Concept of ‘Reading to Learn’: A Way Forward in Exploring the Issues of L2/FL Reading Competence Halina Chodkiewicz Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 256 Girls Read, Boys Play Football: Perceiving Reading through the Lens of Gender Anna Kozioá Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 272 The Analysis of Reading Skills among Polish Learners of English at the Intermediate Level Artur ĝwiątek Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 288 Collaborative Retranslation as an Awareness-Raising Activity Ewa Surdacka Section Five: Writing Challenges for Advanced Learners Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 306 Lexical Profiles: Investigating the Development of Lexical Richness in Advanced L2 Learners’ Writing Maágorzata KrzemiĔska-Adamek Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 322 Achieving the Academic Effect: Lexical Creativity in Learner Academic Writing at the Undergraduate Level Ewa Guz Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 343 Perceptual Salience of Academic Formulas in Academic Writing Piotr Steinbrich Chapter Twenty One................................................................................ 366 Writing It in Their ‘Own’ Words? The Plausibility of Preventing Plagiarism in the Process of Developing Academic Competence in L2 Magdalena TrepczyĔska

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Section Six: Technology and Language Skills Chapter Twenty Two ............................................................................... 386 Computer Games and Language Skills Development Krzysztof Kotuáa Chapter Twenty Three ............................................................................. 400 Receptive Skills in Online Multimedia: A Step Forward or a Leap Backward? Jarosáaw Krajka Chapter Chapter Twenty Four ................................................................. 417 Audiobooks in Teaching a Foreign Language: To Use or Not to Use? Aleksandra Maryniak Chapter Twenty Five ............................................................................... 432 On the Potential of Web-Based Language Skills Assessment Wojciech Malec Chapter Twenty Six ................................................................................. 456 Teaching the Four Language Skills Communicatively: The Potential of New Technologies Vicente Beltran-Palanques Chapter Twenty Seven............................................................................. 472 Autonomous Language Learning Strategies of Turkish Foreign Language Teacher Trainees in View of Receptive and Productive Skills Development U÷ur Recep Çetinavci and Erdo÷an Kartal Editors and Contributors.......................................................................... 489 Index ........................................................................................................ 498

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for insightful comments to Professor Ewa Piechurska-Kuciel from the University of Opole who kindly agreed to review the articles contributed to this volume. Our grateful acknowledgement is also made to Professor Maria Dakowska from the University of Warsaw for her sustained support and encouragement which allowed us to make this book a reality.

PREFACE

The conviction that one develops a range of skills in order to acquire and use a language has been shared in the area of second/foreign language teaching and learning for many decades now, yet theoretical conceptualizations and practical guidelines for classroom applications have been a matter of continuous reconsiderations. With the growth of the Direct and Audiolingual Methods the main interest became the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, their sequencing and implementation of effective instructional techniques for their teaching in classroom conditions, which, as we understand it now, is a too narrow view of the issue. The shift of attention to a scientific explanation of how language skills are acquired was connected with the influences from linguistics as well as with psycholinguistic interpretations of human skilled behaviour and its acquisition in terms of declarative and procedural knowledge, whose implications for language classroom practice were considerable. The acceptance of the skill-theory oriented language instruction demands that the effects of the process of automatization are well-understood, and appropriate conditions are created for language learners so that they can successfully acquire all the aspects of language use. Such an approach to language skills development has farreaching implications for the organization of classroom work and for providing learners with quality practice conducive to the development of multiple aspects of language bottom-up and top-down processing. Going beyond the traditionally distinguished four language skills and the search for new solutions for language teaching practice in recent years has brought into focus the problem of skills integration, the notions of interactional competence and intercultural communicative competence, as well as the pragmatics of the relationships between the participants of communicative events. The current volume deals with the many and varied issues their authors have found important to explore under the general theme of language skills. The volume’s contributors not only show a wide academic interest in the topic, but also point to the multiaspectuality of language-skilled behaviour discussing many attributes of language use and its growth from the perception of speech sounds to discourse production. A number of chapters included in this book report on original empirical studies concerning learning, teaching, and assessment/testing aspects of L2 language skills development. They emphasize the roles played by teachers

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and learners – members of different age groups in diverse educational and social contexts, involved in activities focused on isolated or integrated skills aimed to improve a range of learners’ competences. We found it logical to present the chapters included in the book in six sections, respectively devoted to: fundamental background issues, spoken interaction, perception of speech sounds and production skills, reading contexts and purposes, writing challenges for advanced learners, and technology and language skills. The chapters presented in this volume are addressed to researchers and classroom teachers, specialists in Language Education, Philology and Applied Linguistics as well as to graduate students involved in the study of learning and teaching of language skills. They have been written by a group of experienced international specialists in second/foreign language teaching and learning whose intention was to share the results of their investigations with all those interested in the area. The particular chapters seek to provide readers with a broad view on major issues or more specific problems raised in empirical studies so that they can reflect on the many theoretical and practical issues concerning more traditional as well as innovative approaches to language skills instruction. Essentially, the volume can be recommended to anyone who wants to delve into the complexity of dealing with the issue of language skills both on theoretical and practical grounds so as to expand their knowledge or reconsider their views. The introductory chapter in Section One by Dakowska deals with the fundamental elements of the issue and by taking an evolutionary perspective delineates three main stages in the development of scientific basis for understanding language skills: the philological, linguistic and psycholinguistic ones. The author argues that the impact from psycholinguistics on the developments of the area over the last four decades has been profound, bringing into focus the aspects of modality, cue integration, communicative constraints, as well as the role of meaning, domain-specific context and expertise. Tracing the change in the conceptualization of language skills, Siek-Piskozub explores the concepts of communicative competence and a more currently developed intercultural communicative competence. Pointing out the limitations of the former, the author underscores the fact that, in view of the Intercultural Theory of Language Education, an innovative approach to language skills is to be taken. Teaching language speakers primarily how to understand and interact with representatives of a new cultural environment is a challenge for present-day language education specialists. A description of another changing perspective concerning the conceptualization of

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lanquaqe skills comes from the chapter by NiĪegorodcew, devoted to the development of English for Academic Purposes skills. The researcher claims that what is innovative in the EAP approach is treating language as a lingua franca, taking a discourse analytic view, as well as a sociocultural approach emphasizing students’ participation in academic communities. Some pedagogical implications are suggested. Drawing on insights developed in teaching other-than-language domains, such as music and sport, a novel way of approaching foreign language instruction is proposed by Johnson in the next chapter in this section. The author suggests that the procedures employed by teachers of artistic or technical skills, which, like language use, involve simultaneous control of a set of sub-skills, might support the process of L2 learning, and facilitate the transformation of learners’ declarative into procedural knowledge to a greater extent than it has been thought possible so far. Ellis’s account of the study of elementary level learners’ speaking skills investigated against attainment targets as expressed in the Common European Framework of Reference begins a set of papers on spoken interaction. It is followed by a report of classroom-based research by Guz and Steinbrich into different types of discourse triggered by speaking tasks which, when used in parallel, might adversely affect the learners’ developing competence. Finally, speaking as well as listening skills examined from the perspective of Content and Language Integrated Learning come into focus in an article by Papaja who provides evidence that the study of different school subjects through the medium of English contributes positively to learners’ progress in oracy skills development. Concluding the section addressing spoken interacion issues is an article by Foster which provides a criticism of a common perception of classroom interaction as making the main or the most substantial contribution to the development of knowledge and skills of foreign language learners. The author argues that preoccupation with interaction, with other forms of practice being undervalued, and in consequence underrepresented in classroom teaching, L2 instruction is likely to be incomplete and run counter to learners’ needs and expectations. Section Three of the present work brings together empirically-oriented articles which acknowledge the significance of the phonological component in the development of oral production skills. In the first article, Nowacka provides interesting insights about the relationship between pronunciation and speaking, specifically concentrating in her analyses on the usefulness of a prepared talk for improvement of both phonetic ability and oral proficiency of L2 learners. This is followed by a report on an investigation into pronunciation learning strategies in the area of vowel

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perception and production in controlled and free speaking tasks by Rokoszewska, pointing to the positive impact of strategy training on the quality of oral performance. The article by Szpyra-Kozáowska and Radomski offers an account of an inquiry into the most salient phonetic properties of foreign-accented Polish as perceived by native Poles with the view to identifying the key components of effective instruction programmes for foreigners. In a similar vein, but taking the perspective of native speakers of English, Bryáa-Cruz discusses the problem of accentedness in the speech of Polish learners, identifies major problems and suggests areas of priority in teaching Scottish English to Poles. Finally, in an attempt to establish to what extent musical aptitude facilitates the mastery of L2 pronunciation, NiedĨwiedĨ looks at the role of this attribute in accurate perception of aspects of L2 phonology in isolation and in casual connected speech, and suggests some vital implications for the content of pronunciation training sessions, taking also the demands of real-life communication into account. The fourth section takes a closer look at some issues arising in connection with different purposes for which reading skills are used and a variety of contexts in which they are implemented. In the first chapter Chodkiewicz argues that attempts at the enhanced understanding of the concept of ‘reading to learn’ have not only helped to reinterpret the relationship between ‘learning to read’ and ‘reading to learn’ but also to broaden the scope of interest in the multi-aspectual nature of text processing and the development of L2 reading competence. Also recent L2 reading compensatory models are found to be particularly influential in reconsidering the role of such variables as L1 reading ability, L2 language proficiency, background knowledge, and reader strategies. The two other chapters in the section are accounts of empirical studies. Kozioá’s study aimed to determine whether there are gender differences in reading attitudes among school-age children and to evaluate the relationship between ability and attitude in reading so as to ensure better assistance to boys and girls in school reading practice. ĝwiątek’s contribution of research findings is a result of the analysis of reading skills among L2 Polish subjects at the intermediate level, in particular the comparison of the use of three strategies of text-based questioning. The last chapter in this section by Surdacka focuses on an instructional procedure of collaborative retranslation which seems a viable way of promoting linguistic consciousness-raising as well as enhancing text processing skills and thus may positively affect L2 learners’ reading and writing abilities. In the foreground of the papers in the next section of the present publication are pertinent problems that advanced writers struggle with on

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their way to attaining both expertise and writing competence in a chosen academic discipline as well as the control of a foreign language in its formal academic variety. The section opens with a contribution by KrzemiĔska-Adamek which discusses an important indicator of skilled writing, namely lexical richness, interpreted as sophistication and diversity of lexis in students’ texts, and how it evolves over time. The lexical dimension of writing is also the object of investigation of an article by Guz, which explores the sources of non-academic and non-native-like quality of undergraduate writing, by analysing lexical patterns in students’ texts. The role of conventional lexico-grammatical formulas in academic genres is further addressed by Steinbrich who investigates academic instructors’ and students’ perceptions of value of selected academic phrases for the production of effective discourse. Following the three papers with a lexical focus, TrepczyĔska’s article offers a broader reflection on the phenomenon of plagiarism in student academic writing and shows that it is a multi-faceted problem of diverse roots and as such escaping universal and straightforward solutions. The articles in the last section of this volume are centred on the theme of the use of modern technology in the service of language skills development. In the first article, Kotuáa outlines the pedagogical value of digital computer games for the mastery of a variety of competences that are key to effective language use as well as discusses the impact of the technological advancements on the class environment and the nature of classroom interaction. In the next paper, analysing an example computer software – E-Academy of the Future, Krajka uncovers a range of dilemmas, challenges and compromises inherent in the process of designing multimedia programmes for receptive skills training. Maryniak’s paper begins with an overview of different forms of technology-supported learning, following which, it focuses more closely on the possibilities offered by the use of audiobooks, including graded readers, in reading instruction. Next, taking general issues involved in test development as a point of departure, Malec’s contribution demonstrates the potential benefits and limitations of on-line language skills assessment. Beltran-Palanques’ article, which comes next, begins with an overview of theoretical constructs of communicative competence that evolved over the years. Subsequently, taking as his point of reference one of the recent models that stresses the role of skill integration in building L2 learners’ communicative competence, the author goes on to suggest practical ideas involving the use of modern communication and information technologies for the teaching of the four language skills. Finally, the article by Çetinavci and Kartal sheds light on how the employment of modern

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information and communication technologies in autonomous out-of-class learning can enhance the development of receptive and productive language skills.

SECTION ONE FUNDAMENTAL BACKGROUND ISSUES

CHAPTER ONE EVOLUTION IN UNDERSTANDING THE NOTION OF LANGUAGE AS SKILL IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE DIDACTICS MARIA DAKOWSKA

Abstract The purpose of the chapter is to outline the evolution which has taken place in the past decades in our understanding of the nature of language as skill and its impact on various conceptions and procedures in foreign language teaching. Although implications can be seen for teaching various foreign languages, I focus on English as a foreign language with its uses and functions in the modern globalized world. The ultimate question to be asked is: a) has this evolution brought progress in our understanding of the nature of language relevant to the discipline of foreign language learning and teaching, and b) has it advanced our orientation in options and strategies of developing foreign language as skill in the educational setting.

1. Introduction This chapter presents the evolution in our understanding of the nature of language as skill as three stages which span the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 21st century. Further, it examines some selected significant conceptualizations of the term ‘language skill’ and lists the differences between experts and novices in skilful language use. The tendency toward an increasingly realistic treatment of language as skill is illustrated by a contrast between characteristic features of the graphemic and the phonemic sub-codes in language use for comprehension and production. Such a specific, psycholinguistic understanding can be regarded as an ‘empirical anchor’ in modeling non-primary language use

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and learning in the context of verbal communication, useful as the basis for systematizing strategies of teaching foreign language skills in the educational context.

2. Three stages in the evolution of understanding language as skill in the field of foreign language didactics Taking into account such criteria as the socioeconomic situation, the state of technology and the purposes for which English as a foreign language is used, learned and taught, three stages can be distinguished in the evolving conceptions of language as skill: 1) the philological stage; 2) the linguistic stage; and 3) the psycholinguistic stage (early, middle, and present). Stages two and three deserve a closer inspection in that the ideas on the development of foreign language skills have been derived from increasingly solid scientific bases, such as linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as from research on second/foreign language learning. The psycholinguistic stage, which spans at least four decades, emphasizes the uniqueness of the phonemic and graphemic sub-codes in comprehension and production, modality-specific considerations relevant from the perspective of the language learner, the characteristic seepage of various cues – such as linguistic, para- and non-linguistic – in the process of language use as skill, the role of communicative constraints in language use, and last but not least, the centrality of meaning, especially domain-specific content and expertise (c.f. Gernsbacher 1994; Gaskell 2007). Table 1–1. Essential characteristics of the three stages in understanding foreign language skills (based on Dakowska 2001; 2003; 2005) The philological stage x early industrial society; x language use for (elite) educational purposes (reading); x interpersonal communication of a limited kind, i.e. restricted in terms of space and intensity;

The linguistic stage mid 20th C x late industrial society; x language use for extensive interpersonal/intercultur al communication; x the growth of mass media, communication technology and fast transit for extensive mass mobility;

The psycholinguistic stage turn of the 21st C x information/global society; x language use for extensive interpersonal, intercultural and global communication; x further growth of mass media and spread of the Internet, which beats space and time in verbal communication;

4 x printed and spoken input in the target language; mainly philological inspirations, classical texts in teaching; x the knowledge of language understood as the knowledge of grammar rules and the ability to understand texts; x the ability to understand texts treated as the ability of translating them into the native language; x translation for the purpose of semantizing in reading comprehension; x foreign language teaching based on descriptive and normative grammar, informal observations and common-sense principles.

Chapter One x language input from the printed and spoken sources, but enriched with the discourse of the media; x focus on colloquial language; x definitions of language and learning derived from linguistics and psychology; x clash between habit formation and rule learning; x search for ideal methods of foreign language teaching; x emphasis on language teaching rather than learning, including the four language skills; x hotly-debated issues: primacy of speech, the pre-reading, or silent period, the role of silent reading versus reading aloud, x are skills really passive? x the concept of a common core of the four language skills; x skill-oriented activities from a structural syllabus; x beginnings of psycholinguistic research of language skills; x the field of foreign language teaching seen as methodology.

x the status of English as a world language for global communication, justifying its learning for specialized, professional, expertisedemanding purposes (ESP); x progress in understanding verbal communication as a psychological and sociological phenomenon, including cross-cultural and global communication in its various situational contexts; x advances in the psycholinguistic understanding of comprehension and production in the four language skills in L1 and L2; x understanding of the relationship between language and its use in various sub-codes thanks to research on the deaf, blind and dyslexics; x the notion of metamodal representations underlying individual skills; x an emerging academic discipline of foreign language learning and teaching, called foreign language didactics.

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3. Habit, skill and drill During the audiolingual period, the dominating slogan of the day was the notion that language is a system of habits, i.e. non-reflective language use with ease and fluency. Habits were developed in line with the psychological principles of behaviourism while the ideas regarding the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, were derived from the grammatical syllabus based on structural linguistics. The notions of habit and skill coexisted peacefully but were not sufficiently distinguished from each other. Habits were supposed to be developed by means of practice, which was an integral part of the audiolingual teaching strategies mentioned in one breath with drill, imitation, and pattern practice (Rivers 1964). Drill, imitation, and repetition are overlapping terms referring to the typical audiolingual exercises. Drill seems to be an imitative activity aimed at fast practice, imitation is an act of copying some source material, e.g. a dialogue, and repetition is a recursive activity which involves doing the task (of whatever nature) more than once. A typical audiolingual exercise combines elements of drill, imitation, and repetition: the brisk pace of the activity, limited amount of the learner’s contribution, and repetition to the point of overlearning. Drill lost the popularity in the foreign language classroom which it used to enjoy in the audiolingual era. The problem with the use of drill seems to be the unrealistic expectations connected with it on the one hand, and the position of drill vis a vis other components of communicative practice. Audiolingualists treated drill as a manipulative activity helpful in establishing the desired language habits, tantamount to the mastery of language. The material was of sentence-length, not discourse, with little context for the forms to be learned, i.e. not meaningful and often insufficiently understood by the learner. The purpose of drills was to help the learner to acquire grammar to the point of being able to use it automatically, i.e. fast. The pace of practice was essential for the success of learning. However, this function of drill is infeasible from our present point of view because the material which is meaningless and insufficiently understood cannot be remembered, not to mention automatized and used in unpredictable situations. The next point is that fluent, i.e. skilful language use cannot be mastered merely by echoing, manipulating, or otherwise inculcating ready sentences produced by someone else. We must produce them ourselves, from scratch, in order to experience the decision-making process which goes together with language use in a dynamic communicative environment. In a drill, the learner tries to retain this ready material in his

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or her working memory only to the extent to which it is necessary to reproduce it immediately (Levelt 1975), whereas in speaking the language user performs many demanding decisions and operations to construct an utterance: he or she constructs the communicative intention to be expressed, the style in which it is to be expressed, selects a sentence plan to convert the thought into an utterance, inserts the lexical material and adjusts elements to fit the whole (Levelt 1989). Following the recognition of the weaknesses of the audiolingual approach, researchers and teachers in the field of English as a foreign language realized that language is a complex skill which is not to be confused with habit and which cannot be developed by means of drills. What makes a skill difficult is not performing its single component, but the integration of all of the components in fractions of seconds. Fluent speakers perform all these operations with ease, but their skill is the effect of practice and expertise, accomplished by painstaking attempts, filled with hesitations, effort and trials in various contexts and dynamic combinations. The benefits of drill sessions, on the other hand, materialize as improved pronunciation at best, but they cannot accelerate the development of the speaking skill. Drill may be recommended as a form of rhythm and pronunciation practice which helps the learner to consolidate the articulatory operations involved in producing phonemes at the level of clauses. This is qualitatively different from using drill to master language as skill. Repetition is a kind of imitation, which may occur in two varieties: a) as imitation of one’s own utterance, or b) as imitation of the material provided externally. Self-imitation, or saying one’s own utterance again aloud or silently, is very common both in infancy and later in life, during deliberate study, when it serves as rehearsal for consolidation. Rehearsal is a mechanical strategy for repeating the material to be learned as input to working memory, which strengthens its trace in our long-term memory. Repetition may also serve the purpose of consolidating either the motor aspect of behaviour being practiced or the information contents committed to memory. It is necessary in a wide array of skill-demanding activities. Its role in foreign language learning may be defended on the grounds that only rote repetition is useless and hard to turn into a lasting memory trace, whereas the repetition of meaningful material, especially the material which the learner himself or herself has generated, is essential in developing fluency and accuracy. Meaningless repetition is a common activity which can be found in various drill routines of audiolingualism, yet in Communicative Language Teaching it is openly contested as going against the grain of the principle of information gap (Dakowska 2005).

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4. Key contributions to conceptualizing the notion of skill Fitts (1964) was one of the first authors in the field of language learning to identify three stages of acquiring a skill: 1) the cognitive stage, in which the learner makes the initial approximation of the skilldemanding task, based on background knowledge, observation and instructions; 2) the associative stage, in which the task is consolidated while some errors are eliminated; and 3) the autonomous stage, in which the skill is gradually established and improved. In 1968, Welford 1968 published a classical volume on general mental and sensory-motor skills accounting for factors which make up expert, rapid and accurate performance. Most importantly, he situated his model in the context of human information processing especially such sub-systems in this mechanism as perception from our sensory organs, short-term memory, long-term store, control of response and performance. In his conception, skill involves decision-making, i.e. selection and coordination, or integration, a highly constructive, flexible form of behaviour. Especially significant from the point of view of foreign language learning and teaching is the contribution to our understanding of the nature of language use as skill made by Herriot (1970), first and foremost his explicit distinction between the linguist’s perspective of language as a formal system external to the user and the user’s perspective of language as interpersonal behaviour, i.e. communication. He blames linguists for inserting their formal system external to the user to represent the user and opposed ‘any effort to install linguists’ models of language as models of psychological processes’ (Herriot 1970, 18). Language behaviour has the following properties of skilled behaviour: a) the hierarchical nature (skills consist of hierarchies and subhierarchies of operations which must be integrated by language users to keep pace with the fluency demands; b) some criterion of success (a norm or target); and c) automatization, anticipation and feedback. Legge and Barber (1976) point out such properties of general skills which are practised, yet flexible tasks: the role of coordination of the activity, the incorporation of feedback, on-line planning and, still underestimated in the field of language learning and teaching, the information base of skill. They stress the need to incorporate accuracy into skill practice, a significant point in view of the danger of fossilization in second/foreign language learning. Their conception features a cardinal aspect of the nature of language use as skill, namely the selection processes on the part of the language users, i.e. the choices they make

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from among the available options represented mentally in order to construct a unit of activity in language use. Moreover, their conception entails the notion of target tasks in the sense of some intended norm for the language operations which guides the user’s behaviour. Among the factors conducive to skill learning are guidance by a more experienced person, feedback availability and incorporation, some change in the information basis as well as organization of skill, which could now be called restructuring (McLaughlin 1990).

4.1. Levelt’s conception of language as skill (focus on speaking) A classic in the research on language as skill is Levelt (1975; 1978; 1989). In his ground-breaking article he pointed out (Levelt 1975, 57): One of the most general features of complex tasks is their HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE. This means that the task consists of subtasks, sub-sub-tasks, etc. The idea is that execution of one part of the task requires the completion of various smaller operations in accurate temporal integration. Each of these operations may in its turn require a set of still more elementary operations, etc. Speaking is an excellent example of hierarchical task structure. There is the first order goal to express a certain intention. In order to realize this, one has to do various things, such as for instance, deciding on topic and new comment to be made, and selecting a certain syntactic schema. In its turn, the realization of this schema requires sub-activities like formulating successive phrases which can express different parts of the intention. Within these phrases word retrieval operations have to be executed until the phrase is completed. But each word in its turn has to be realized phonetically by the activation of articulatory patterns, etc. After completion of lower level tasks control must be returned to higher levels, consequent selection of the next phrase, and so on. In short, the hierarchical nature of complex tasks requires the existence of PLANS or programs for their execution. The creation of such plans or programs consumes large amounts of effort. Planning a subtask means retrieving from memory the necessary information (about present and desired state, about rules for achieving the desired result, etc.). During this planning, partial results may have to be kept in STM in order to stay available for successful execution of later operations. ….One of the most important characteristics of skill is that the creation of plans during performance is reduced to a bare minimum. The skilful performer has these plans available in long-term memory. This is especially the case for lower-level plans, such as articulatory patterns for words, phrase structures, intonation patterns and so on. Plans which have become part of the more permanent cognitive outfit of a person, are said to be automated. The acquisition of skill consists essentially of automation of

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low level plans or units of activity. Initially the execution of such a unit of activity requires the allocation of a large amount of mental effort, since it has to be designed anew.

Furthermore, the author (Levelt 1978) enumerated the following distinctive features of language as skill: a) hierarchical organization, i.e. higher order, more important decisions influence the subordinated, lower-order choices; this implies the ability to integrate tasks and sub-tasks within one episode of activity; b) hybrid (i.e. mixed) processing, i.e. the higher-order choices, more significant because related to the communicative intention, are slower and controlled by our attentional resources, while the lowerorder subordinated ones, related to formulation (i.e. planning and lexical insertion) and articulation, are performed in fractions of seconds (they are too fast to be controlled by our attentional resources or to be available to our awareness); automaticity in processing, i.e. limited demand on the processing resources, calls for the activation of procedural representations; c) language use as skill is an act of composing, which requires not only the acquisition of the complex nature of tasks, but also the ability to act in a largely unpredictable and changing environment in which the speaker of a language has to keep track of the ongoing communication, plan and execute his or her utterance, comprehend the intention of the interlocutor and plan ahead. A distinctive feature of Levelt’s psycholinguistic view of language as skill, which should not be underestimated from the teaching perspective, is entailed in the following statement, in which he breaks down the notion of language skill into skill-specific subsystems, i.e. processing components and representations which are inextricable from the language user: Developing a theory of any complex cognitive skill requires a reasoned dissection of the system into subsystems, or processing components. It also requires a characterization of the representations that are computed by these processors and of the manner in which they are computed, as well as specification of how these components cooperate in generating their joint end product (Levelt 1989, 1).

4.2. Experts versus novices in language use as skill In view of the above, experts in the use of skills can be contrasted with novices on the basis of such criteria as fluency of their performance,

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degree of accuracy, certainty regarding forms, meta-cognitive regulation of their performance, the awareness of the global target model for the performance, and the use of elaborate forms. Table 1–2. Polarizing skill differences between experts and novices in language tasks (Anderson 1981) EXPERTS 1. are characterized by fluent performance 2. accurate performance in the sense of a rather limited number of errors 3. display certainty regarding the forms 4. longer, more developed/elaborated tasks 5. strategies and metacognitive regulation 6. mental global model, or standard 7. deeper processing, more critical evaluation of the task.

NOVICES 1. by more hesitant performance 2. distinctly more errors in their performance 3. lack of certainty regarding language forms 4. shorter, more laconic tasks 5. strategies still to be developed; resources unavailable for metacognitive regualtion 6. insufficient or missing model or standard 7. surface processing, focus on local aspects of the task.

5. Toward a sufficiently specific understanding of the concept Defining the concept of language as skill relevant from the point of view of foreign didactics calls for a realistic context of language use for communicative purposes, so that the vast potential of the notion of language can be limited to what people (language learners, language users) really do in sociocultural situations. Therefore, such a definition can be situated: a) within the natural constraints of language use in verbal communication for the purpose of influencing others; i.e. the central role of meaning (content and expertise) in the context of humanly feasible encounters, relationships and situations; b) as an inalienable property of language users, i.e. human subjects including their mental and sociocultural environment; i.e. the ubiquity of top-down and bottom-up interactions between the processing subjects and their environment;

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c) whole-person involvement in verbal communication, which is to say that language users tap all their resources and mental capacities for communicative situations, such as their cognitive system, emotions, volition, imagination, imagery, language and body language, visual and analogical information processing, personal culture, etc.; d) sufficiently specific for the purpose of TEFL, i.e. sensitive to modality-specific considerations; focus on the sub-codes and their distinctive features (see table below). Table 1–3. Differences between the graphemic and the phonemic subcodes in language use (Dakowska 2005) The graphemic sub-code – writing develops in space – the text is permanent, i.e. the learner can read at his or her own pace as well as re-read and go up and down the page – language forms are presented explicitly, as discrete elements – some structuring (organization) of the message comes from punctuation – additional, para- and nonverbal clues are available in typography and illustrations – the level of formality depends on the communicative situation – writing allows for a considerable degree of propositional embedding – because of its permanence, writing is often used for propositionally complex specialized content

The phonemic sub-code – listening develops in time, i.e. the spoken message is transient; therefore, the learner must contend with his or her working memory constraints – however, the listener can use numerous contextual/situational clues – when we have eye contact with the interlocutor, there are ample nonverbal clues available – the message is structured (i.e. organized into clauses) by prosody – however, speaking involves coarticulation, hesitations and various imperfections in planning, an extra burden for the language learner – the level of formality depends on he situation – listening is constrained by our working memory limitations

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5.1. Language skill in the cycle of language use (knowledge, skill, discourse) The term ‘cycle’ means that the episodes of communication are recursive: a full cycle involves the sender’s intention reaching the addressee to be reconstructed in his or her mind as well as a response on the part of the addressee reaching the sender’s mind to be reconstructed and evaluated. Each individual is equipped to take both the role of the sender (producer) and comprehender (addressee), whereas their communicative intentions are largely determined by their knowledge, goals, previous exchanges as well as the entire context of the situation. Since people enter communicative encounters in some social roles with agendas and expectations, their communicative intentions are determined by these social roles, identities, motives, and desires. Therefore, it is necessary to posit, both for the sender and the addressee, the appropriate representations in their minds required in verbal communication, that is a) language as knowledge – a distributed propositional as well as declarative and procedural networks of mental representations; b) language use as skill, a complex form of behaviour which enables the communicating person to integrate hierarchically organized choices from among various representations, and their execution in the form of speaking or writing, and c) language product in the form of discourse, i.e. linear encoding of our communicative intention in the form of an utterance or written text. To sum up, knowledge refers to the vastly distributed mental networks, hierarchies and systems of information, activated in encoding and decoding communicative intentions. It includes a variety of representations: words in our mental lexicon categorized from the point of view of form, associations and meaning, modality specific representations, declarative and procedural records, syntagmatic and paradigmatic representations, (preverbal) plans, schemata, scenarios, scripts, conventions and rules, as well as models of culture-specific discourse genres. Knowledge may be fuzzy and poorly organized, and therefore harder to access, as much as well-organized and explicit, and thus more easily accessible and available for verbalization. In this context, the notion of language use as skill has been defined as a behavioural category denoting a hierarchical integration of communicative choices which enable the language user to resort to controlled processes for the strategically more important decisions and execute them with the help of subordinated automatic processes. Automatization of lower-level choices helps the language user to keep pace with the communicative fluency demands. Both the lexical material as well as the syntagmatic

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plans and other linear arrangements are activated in converting the intention into discourse. The choices that the speaker makes must be implemented in fractions of seconds. The qualitative difference between knowledge in the sense of mental representations and skill as a behavioural category is not only in the ability of the language user to retrieve the required information from memory, but first of all, the ability – within the constraints of his or her working memory – to integrate the necessary operations in time to control the composing activity and regulate its course/direction. The lower-level choices must be automatic to free the attentional resources for the more ambitious and demanding level of the task. The learner’s route to automatization is via practice and it has its own progression identified by Fitts (1964) as the declarative, associative and autonomous stages. The difficulty of developing skills in foreign language learning results from the fact that the integration and automaticity necessary in skilled language use are developed via flexible adjustable acts of composing utterances, i.e. they must be practiced in countless communicative tasks which take time, in contrast to rigid language drills aimed at fixed grammatical forms, taken out of their communicative environment. Skill acquisition requires relevant models of behaviour, practice, imitation and repetition, rehearsal, deliberate planning, integration, whole-part task strategy, feedback incorporation, etc., provided the material is communicatively relevant and the unit of activity is sufficiently sizeable to be stored as a communicative event, which is to say, it must have an episodic structure of a meaningful communicative task. Discourse is the tangible, and even permanent language product of encoding in verbal communication and may even be recorded in a form more permanent than the auditory one. The distinctive property of this natural unit of verbal communication is the unity of the communicative intention, constructed by the sender and directed at the addressee, as well as its deep embeddedness in the situational context by means of reference and deixis. Discourse hangs together because of its coherence and cohesion, i.e. topical connectivity and prosodic, morphosyntactic and lexical suprasentential devices which retain the links between the new and given information from the speaker’s perspective to hold the thread of discourse together. From the point of view of the needs of language learners, the most important function of discourse is that of language input, i.e. the source of information on how competent speakers code their communicative intentions into target language forms and do this intelligibly as well as idiomatically in situational contexts. More specifically, target language

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discourse is a model and a source of knowledge about discourse genres, i.e. culturally-specific discourse types with their domain terminology, structure and characteristic coherence and cohesion devices. Practising discourse production must entail the experience of using the coherence and cohesion devices accurately over some communicative distances within the working memory constraints. Discourse is not only an outcome of communicative processes, the effect of language production and the material for comprehension, but also the material for study and reasoning. It may be taken apart and put back together again, the underlying plan may be inferred and reconstructed with a view to its conventions. Lexical units of various sizes may be perceived, semanticized, elaborated, systematized and learned in connection with it. The ability to produce discourse may be developed with the use of models for imitation, partial imitation, completion and summarizing, parallel writing, analysis and recognition of discourse plans and conventions, as well as in relevant partial tasks which include planning, drafting/rehearsing, editing/feedback incorporation and rewriting/retelling, as well as process writing (Dakowska 2003).

6. Options in developing language skills The table below systematizes options that are available in the field of foreign language didactics for the development of language use as skill, ensuing from our understanding of this complex, but specific notion: Table 1–4. Systematizing options of developing EFL skills in the classroom context 1. Task adjustment strategies

Pre-teaching for the task, orientation/anticipation strategies, no time constraints, compression, elaboration (built-in redundancy), augmentation and salience/prominence given to task elements, etc.

2. learning by observation

source of language knowledge, such as situational discourse models, schemata and scenarios, including lexical material and standards for skill-demanding tasks opportunity to coordinate and sustain the production of longer chunks of discourse to “stretch” the limitations of the learner’s working memory and enhance fluency (also see no. 9, fluency work)

3. imitation, i.e. verbatim repetition, of ready tasks

Evolution in Understanding the Notion of Language as Skill

4. modelling

5. rehearsal for the task

6. instruction, guidance 7. mental practice

8. accuracy work

9. fluency work

10. distributed practice

11. feedback incorporation

12. part/whole strategy

13. strategy prompts and metacognitive regulation

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initial exposure and practice of new (culturespecific) units of behaviour in a modified rather than verbatim manner, exposure to, and acquisition of, relevant schemata and scenarios for skilled behaviour opportunity to assemble a complex task in a “rough copy”, incorporate any internal and external feedback information on the task in order to improve its quality the second time around enables the learner to attempt new tasks without a ready model at hand, but with some assistance provided by the teacher retrieving task-relevant material from permanent memory and planning the progression of the task; covert practice which is very common in our lives attention to form in the task which increases the precision of mental representations and their use before proceduralization, which allows incorporating accuracy into skill repetition of one’s own production to integrate parts of the task, sometimes, but not always hard to distinguish from rehearsal; its written version is called revision or editing helps to consolidate and improve the quality of skilful performance in time; thought to be more effective than amassed (concentrated) practice because each time it requires new retrieval of task components from LT memory performing the task with immediate and delayed feedback enhances the precision of practice; feedback may even take the form of target-like model for the task to improve its idiomatic quality provides an opportunity to cope with task complexity gradually rather than to opt out, provided the parts are commensurate with the overall target task structure some strategic or metatask cuing may be helpful to guide and facilitate practice, but they cannot replace practice responsible for procedural records;

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7. Conclusions To address the main questions selected for this chapter, let me reiterate that the evolution in our understanding of the notion of language as skill has brought progress not only in the form of increasingly elaborate conceptions, but more importantly, increasingly specific/precise conceptions of language use as skill in the context of knowledge and discourse in the cycle of verbal communication for the purpose of comprehension and production in speech and writing. Verbal communication cannot be separated from communication in general and calls for such conceptual categories connected with language use as domain-specificity, situational context, level of expertise, shared knowledge between the interlocutors acting either as senders or addressees. As a result, skills can be distinguished from strategies understood as task-based choices and plans we make to reach the goal, under the circumstances, with some optimality criterion regarding the use of our limited resources, such as time, knowledge, procedures, etc. Language use as skill, on the other hand, is a hierarchical hybrid (automatic as well as controlled) structure of integrated operations. This structure, once mastered with the underlying knowledge base, makes it possible for language users to navigate in the vast, dynamic and fairly unpredictable flow of communicative interactions. Strategies are (episodic) choices essential in attaining goals with our typically limited supplies and resources while skills enable us to cope with the ongoing demands of complex yet flexible processes. This notion of language skill enables us to decompose the process of language skill learning into relevant units of activity, conducive to skill acquisition in the classroom context.

Bibliography Anderson, John R., ed. 1981. Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dakowska, Maria. 2001. Psycholingwistyczne podstawy dydaktyki jezyków obcych. Warszawa: PWN. —. 2003. Current Controversies in Foreign Language Didactics. Warsaw: Warsaw University Press. —. 2005. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. A Guide for Professionals. Warsaw: PWN. Eysenck, Michal W. and Mark T. Keane. 2010. Cognitive Psychology. A Student’s Handbook. Hove: Psychology Press.

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Fitts, Paul M. 1964. “Perceptual-Motor Skill Learning”. In Categories of Human Learning, edited by Arthur W. Melton, 243-85. New York: Academic Press. Gaskell, M. Gareth, ed. 2007. The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gernsbacher, Morton Ann, ed. 1994. Handbook of Psycholinguistics. San Diego: Academic Press. Herriot, Peter. 1970. An Introduction to the Psychology of Language. London: Methuen. Legge, David and Paul J. Barber, 1976. Information and Skill. London: Methuen. Levelt, William J. M. 1975. “Systems, Skills and Language Learning”. In The Context of Foreign Language Learning, edited by A. J. van Essen and J. P. Menting, 83-99. Assen: van Gorcum. —. 1978. Skill Theory and Language Teaching. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 1: 53-68. —. 1989. Speaking. From Intention to Articulation. Cambridge: Mass.: The MIT Press. McLaughlin, Barry. 1990. Restructuring. Applied Linguistics 11:113-128. Rivers, Wilga M. 1964. The Psychologist and the Foreign-Language Teacher. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Welford, Alan Traviss. 1968. Fundamentals of Skill. London: Methuen.

CHAPTER TWO FROM COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE TO INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: A NEW PROPOSAL FOR LANGUAGE SKILLS TERESA SIEK-PISKOZUB

Abstract In the last few years there has been a move within foreign language education (FLE) toward communication which is understood as a constant process of interpreting messages and negotiating meaning. Communication is not defined as a single, temporally linear process but constitutive of specific interactional scenes and events leading to the development of communicative competence. Acquiring communicative competence in the target language has been the main goal of language education for some time leading to the development of communicative language teaching (CLT). However, more recently the concept of communicative competence has been criticised for being too deeply rooted in the concept of the neutral native language speaker, and thus of little value for intercultural communication. Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is being propagated as a more appropriate concept for foreign language education where some level of communicative competence is only one of the components, intercultural competence being the new constituent. Researchers have shown a considerable divergence in identifying components of what is referred to as intercultural communicative competence (ICC). One of the better known models in FLE is proposed by Byram who emphasises that apart from linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse competence ICC requires certain attitudes, knowledge and skills. The attitudes include curiosity, openness and readiness to meet

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other cultures and the speaker’s own without being judgmental. The knowledge applies to both social groups and to their products, practices and interaction patterns. The ICC skills, apart from consisting of critical cultural awareness, also include interpretation, relating, interaction and discovery. Researchers also disagree as to how to approach ICC in the foreign language classroom context, whether to concentrate on the cultural differences or similarities with some others emphasizing the need to adopt both standpoints. The difference between the two concepts of language competence in FLE (i.e. communicative competence vs. ICC) will be discussed in this chapter. The problems that language teachers and learners may face while adopting an intercultural approach will also be analysed.

1. Defining language competence Concepts of what competence a non-native language (L2) user needs were defined following linguistic and sociolinguistic understandings which took into account an analysis of language competence of an idealised native (L1) speaker. “Communicative competence” is the term proposed by Dell Hymes in reaction to Noam Chomsky’s rather limited understanding of “competence” as an internalised formal system of language separating it from performance where language skills could be located. While Chomsky (1959, 143) was of the opinion that The child who learns a language has in some sense constructed the grammar for himself on the basis of his observation of sentences and nonsentences (i.e. corrections by the verbal community). (…) this grammar is of an extremely complex and abstract character (…) this task is accomplished in an astonishingly short time, to a large extent independent of intelligence, and in a comparable way by all children.”

Hymes (1972, 277) posited: We have to account for the fact that a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences, not only as grammatical, but also appropriate. He or she acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.

Thus, in Hymes’s understanding, communicative competence includes not only “linguistic competence” but “sociolinguistic competence” as well.

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The process of language communication became an object of research and a factor named “willingness to communicate” (WTC) was identified. McCroskey and Richmond (1987, 122–156) described it as a tendency to engage in the process of communication when free to do so and dependent on two variables: lack of anxiety and perceived competence. Numerous studies confirmed different levels of L1 WTC between countries and cultures. Many new factors influencing WTC level were identified. Following Mystkowska-Wiertelak and Pietrzykowska (2011, 122), these were “the number of participants in communication, the degree of intimacy, the level of formality, the topic of discussion” with language having the strongest impact. Hymes’s concept of communicative competence motivated researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) and as a result various models related to L2 learners and users were designed. A model which is directly related to Hymes’s model is that of Canale and Swain (1980, 1-47). They expanded his model by adding “strategic competence” to the two competences (i.e. grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence). Thus, the strategies used in the process of communication of a non-native speaker became of interest to researchers in SLA. Three years later Canale added a fourth component, namely “discourse competence” (Canale1983, 2–27). A model of “communicative language ability” designed for the use of L2 testing was proposed by Bachman (1990, 87). Its major components were “language competence”, “strategic competence” and “psychological mechanism”, the latter two referring to skills and strategies used in communication. Referring to language competence Bachman subdivided Canale and Swain’s competences into several sub-categories: organisational competence with grammatical and textual competences, and pragmatic competence with illocutionary competence and sociolinguistic competence. However, his model has been criticised for its lack of theoretical anchoring of strategic competence1 which in his model is separated from language competence and relates also to speakers knowledge. As noted by Johnson (2004, 94), the possibility of separating cohesion from coherence, i.e. placing the former under organizational competence and the latter under a pragmatic one, is also unrealistic as both are in reciprocal relationship in real-life interaction. Drawing on the research of native speakers communication and on her earlier model designed with associates Celce-Murcia (2007, 45) proposed yet another revised version of Canale and Swain’s model. Sociolinguistic competence was relabelled to “sociocultural competence” and grammatical competence to “linguistic competence”. In the earlier model a new

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component, i.e. “actional competence” was added which in the later version was renamed “interactional competence”. Thus, the revised model comprises three operational levels of the process of communication. The basic level consists of four competences (linguistic competence, sociocultural competence, interactional competence and formulaic competence) which serve as building blocks for discourse competence (second level of communication process), the latter unifying cohesion and coherence. Strategic competence is represented in her model as a circle surrounding the two previous levels with an arrow indicating a constant interaction between all the components; it concerns learning and communication strategies. Learning strategies comprise metacognitive, cognitive and memory related strategies, while communication strategies include achievement, stalling, self-monitoring, interacting and social strategies. Yet another model deserves attention, particularly that it has motivated the recent understanding of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), namely van Ek’s “communicative ability” (1986, 35-36). Van Ek based his model on the earlier concepts as well as on the outcomes of the European language project which aimed at defining a new notionalfunctional syllabus. In the van Ek’s model social factors are of major importance. His communicative ability is comprised of: x Linguistic competence, i.e. knowledge of vocabulary items and mastery of certain structural rules through which they are processed into meaningful utterances; x Socio-linguistic competence, i.e. the ability to use and interpret language forms with situational appropriacy; x Discourse competence, i.e. the ability to perceive and achieve coherence of separate utterances in meaningful communication patterns; x Strategic competence, i.e. the ability to use verbal or non-verbal strategies to compensate for gaps in the user’s knowledge of the code; x Socio-cultural competence, i.e. a certain degree of familiarity with the socio-cultural context in which the language is used; x Social competence, i.e. the desire and self-confidence to interact with others as well as empathy and the ability to handle social situations. The above discussed models of L2 communicative competence were based on the concept of an idealised native speaker and influenced the emergence of a communicative approach to L2 teaching.

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2. The communicative approach and its limitations The communicative approach which has developed as a result of adopting the concept of communicative competence for L2 learning is described in many documents. For example, Sheils (1988) introduces his principles of communicative language teaching (CLT) and describes the ways in which interaction in the classroom may be promoted, how to develop various skills used in oral and written communication and also how to develop linguistic competence. In Poland the approach was introduced to foreign language teachers by Hanna Komorowska and her associates (1988). In the initial chapter to the collection of ideas on how to develop different aspects of communicative competence, Komorowska explains that in fact it is not a unified concept and perhaps we should refer to communicative approaches and not to the approach. The communicative approach can be content-based, task-based or product-based. In the communicative approach the emphasis is on skills and not an internalised formal system of language, which, however, also is of importance although in a different way than when the language system was of primary importance. Proponents of the communicative approach refer to such documents as the final version of the notional-functional syllabus the Threshold Level 1990. However, the concept of communicative competence and the way to develop it via the communicative approach have both faced criticism recently. As noted by many scholars (Byram 1997; Mikuáowski-Pomorski 2006; Aleksandrowicz-PĊdich 2007), even near-native communicative competence in L2 will not ensure successful L2 communication between members from different cultural backgrounds because of the differences in the mental structure of intercultural communicators, and due to the fact that a possible deficit of the ability to develop and maintain one’s own identity and the identity of the interlocutors during the L2 interaction process is likely. Also it is observed (Nazari 2007) that activities aiming at developing communicative competence in the educational context have a reductionist tendency to refer to a socio-culturally neutral native speaker. What is more, as emphasized by Byram and Morgan (1994, 9), CLT is endangered with a temptation to drill “conversational survival skills”. Lázár (2007, 5) warns, that neither good knowledge of grammar, rich vocabulary, some memorised speech acts, knowledge of some cultural facts nor good pronunciation will assist an interlanguage speaker in functioning in another society. It needs to be remembered, as noted by Risager (2005, vii), L2 learning has two sides: a language side and a cultural side, and to

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successfully bring the two in the foreign language classroom is a real challenge.

3. Focus on cross-cultural communication The processes of globalisation and the development of new technologies which have enhanced communication across the globe resulted in growing interest in the phenomenon of cross-cultural communication. As a result a new discipline has emerged, i.e. Crosscultural studies. It is an interdisciplinary field of enquiry motivated by the methodology of ethnography, anthropology, sociology, psychology and linguistics. In the latter case the theory of Whorf and Sapir of linguistic relativism2 or works of Wierzbicka (1991; 1997) are often quoted. Usually the beginning of cross-cultural studies as a discipline of science is marked by the publication of Hall’s (1959) analysis of the complex relationship between communication and culture. Initially the goal of research was cognition and the understanding of different target cultures. However, in the 1990’s the importance of the awareness of ones own culture to minimise the probability of communication failure in crosscultural communication was emphasised (Hofstede 1986; Kapciak, Korporowicz and Tyszko 1996). The complexity of the concept of “culture” which might be the reason for cross-cultural miscommunication was of interest to many scholars. Hall posits: “ culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants” (1959, 39). Weaver’s “iceberg model of culture” (1993, 137-168) helps explain the difficulty one faces when moving between cultures. In his model the tip of the iceberg is represented by an external culture which is explicitly learnt and thus conscious, can easily be changed and is often referred to as objective knowledge. What is below the surface level is the internal culture, implicitly learnt and unconscious and thus, difficult to change. It is referred to as subjective knowledge. Initially an L2 speaker may have access to limited knowledge of the explicit culture (what s/he sees, hears, can touch) without awareness of what is hidden, i.e. beliefs, values, thought patterns and myths which in fact may motivate native speakers’ behaviour. L2 speakers need to learn the target culture, however, as posited by Kramsch (2001, 229): the ultimate goal of cultural learning is not to convey information about a culture nor to promote the acquisition of culturally influenced ways of behaving, but rather to help learners see their culture in relation to others so as to promote cross-cultural understanding.

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4. Intercultural communicative competence as a new concept for FLE The criticism of the concept of communicative competence in the context of the L2 speaker and learner as well as the achievements of crosscultural studies have led scholars to define a concept of intercultural communicative competence as better suited for cross-cultural communication. Researchers have shown a considerable divergence in identifying components of what is referred to as intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Like with communicative competence different models were designed emphasising the different kinds of skills and dimensions of cultural awareness needed for successful communication between L2 speakers. Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions based on an extensive empirical research concentrates on five dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism continuum, masculinity/femininity and time orientation. Hofstede provides for several grids in which he places different societies on values along the dimensions. In his view language and culture teaching are separated (Hofstede 1991, 141). A developmental model of sensitivity was proposed by Bennett (1993). The author emphasised the importance of enhancing skills of sensitivity which develop in two main phases subdivided into six stages. The initial ethnocentric stages are: 1) denial (isolation, separation), 2) defence (denigration, superiority, reversal), 3) minimisation (physical universalism, transcendent universalism) leading to the ethnorelative stages: 4) acceptance (respect for, behavioural differences, respect for value differences, 5) adaptation (empathy, pluralism), and 6) integration (contextual evaluation, constructive marginality). In the author’s view an intercultural speaker needs to move from ethnocentrism through stages of greater recognition and acceptance of differences developing as a result intercultural sensitivity, i.e. learning to recognise and deal with fundamentally different perceptions of the world. However, the most often quoted model in the educational context is the one designed by Byram (1997, 1-2). The author differentiates between the situation of “tourists” and “sojourners”. While the former expect that what they see will remain unchanged and that they themselves may have an enriching experience from meeting the other but they will stay fundamentally unchanged, the latter’s expectations are that of prompting transformations. Byram has built his model on van Ek’s (1986) concept of communicative competence, although his point of reference was an intercultural speaker and not a native speaker. His model includes

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linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse competences and additionally “intercultural competence” with an interplay between them all. Intercultural competence, which can develop as a result of teaching, field work optionally preceded by teaching or as a result of self-study, is presented in his model as an entailment of different kinds of ‘savoir’: Savoir être, i.e. attitudes of curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own, savoirs, i.e. knowledge of self and other, knowledge of interaction patterns on individual and societal level, savoir s’engager, i.e. political education and critical cultural awareness, savoir comprendre, i.e. skills to interpret and relate, savoir apprendre/faire, i.e. skills to discover and/or interact (Byram 1997, 50). Skills in this model are understood differently than in the models of communicative competence in which they refer to processes of listening, speaking, reading, writing and interaction. For example, “skills to interpret and relate” mean that an intercultural speaker should be able to: x Identify and explain ethnocentric elements in a document; x Identify and explain sources of misunderstanding in an interaction; x Mediate between contradictory perceptions of phenomena. “Skills to discover and interact” enable the intercultural speaker to: x Elicit from interlocutors values of a document and explain them; x Identify references within and across cultures, and understand their significance; x Identify and use processes of interaction; x Use a combination of skills, attitudes and knowledge in interaction with interlocutors from a different country; x Identify historical and present relationships; x Identify and use institutions which facilitate contact with other cultures; x Use skills, knowledge and attitudes for intercultural mediation. (Byram 1997, 53) An intercultural speaker should thus be able to understand a new cultural environment as well as interact with this environment. Originally ICC referred to communication between speakers coming from different ethnic groups. In a more recent work Alred, Byram and Fleming (2008, 3) extended the understanding of ICC: People born and socialised into specific groups tend to assume that the conventions and values by which they live within their groups are inevitable and ‘natural’. It is when they have some kind of experience which leads them to question these given conventions and values – but not

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Chapter Two necessarily to reject them – that they begin to become ‘intercultural’ in our sense.

The European Centre for Modern Languages, situated in Graz, published a guide for language teachers in which ICC is defined as “the ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations and to relate appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts” (Lázár et al. 2007, 9). It has become a goal of European education, and FLE is particularly well suited to target this goal. ICC is stated as a goal of foreign language learning and teaching in such documents as a Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (2001, 43) which explicates that the L2 learner should “not simply acquire two distinct, unrelated ways of acting and communicating. The language learner becomes plurilingual and develops interculturality” (italics in original). The document further describes and enumerates components of “general competences”, which are based on the components of Byram’s intercultural competence, and “communicative language competence” (linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence and pragmatic competence) also present in Byram’s model. A document which to some extent can assist the evaluation of ICC is the European Language Portfolio, particularly its part called Bibliography, where in one section learners are to specify their “most significant linguistic and intercultural experiences” (2005, 6). However, there is no one way of developing ICC in the educational context. While Mikuáowski-Pomorski (2006) postulates a concentration on the similarities as first, Barna (1998, 173-174) emphasises the need to concentrate on stumbling blocks, i.e. cultural differences such as: ethnocentrism, prejudice, and stereotypes, possible cultural shock, conviction that there are more differences than similarities and possible miscommunications originating from verbal and non-verbal interaction. Liddicoat (2002, 4-11), having experience of teaching L2 English in Australia in an intercultural context, advocates the integration of both approaches. In Poland, Cháopek (2008a, 12-16) has used a three staged model for ICC development. In the first stage L2 learners focus on their own culture acquiring the language needed to describe different cultural phenomena. In the second stage they get acquainted with the target culture through comparisons of similarities and differences between their home-culture and the target one. In the last stage, learners’ cultural knowledge is expanded to that of the world.

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5. Problems with ICC development Since ICC as the target of FLE has been recommended for quite some time studies are available pointing to various problems that teachers and learners are facing. Data from several studies show that FL teachers may not be well prepared for the role of intercultural mediator. For example, Sercu et al. (2005) collected data from 424 FL teachers of seven countries which show that ICC skills do not attract enough attention in the foreign language classroom; Lázár (2007) noted that Hungarian teachers ignore intercultural training during FL teaching and concentrate on selected British cultural facts, with the exception of introducing greetings and complaints routines. Polish data are less congruent. While Aleksandrowicz-PĊdich’s (2007, 3956) and Biaáek’s (2009) data corroborate the international data, Cháopek’s research (2009, 61-68) based on responses from 106 Polish, English, French and German L2 teachers is more optimistic, although she also emphasises not enough focus on the socio-cultural component. SiekPiskozub (2012, 2277-2289) reports a variety of ICC levels among her students in an MA programme, BA graduates in EFL, which corroborates the conclusions of Owczarek (2010) who evaluated the effectiveness of the three year BA programme offered by one of the teacher training colleges from the point of view of ICC. In her cross-sectional study she compared the ICC of the first- and the third-year students to find out that not all of them developed their ICC to the same level. Additionally, she found that the evaluation of ICC required many tools, the results of which were difficult to bring together. Tomasz Róg (2012, 143-144) reports problems Hosoya and Talib observed related to the nationality of pre-service teachers. They compared Finnish and Japanese trainees and found that while the Finnish trainees believed that teaching could have an impact on people and society (teachers as role models), and were more open to diversity, the Japanese trainees thought that one’s social and ethnic background influenced academic performance (limited influence of teachers upon learners’ achievement), and were more focussed on ecology. Researchers have discussed various problems with assessing ICC. For example, it is not clear if the cultural component and language component should be assessed simultaneously or separately (Corbett 2003, 191). Also, there is a need to make decisions concerning types of assessment. Since ICC is of a dynamic character both the on-going process of ICC development and the achieved levels need to be assessed leaving the question of balance between “formative and summative assessment” and the decisions concerning the choice of “direct and indirect assessment”.

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Other decisions concern the choice between “holistic assessing or analytic assessing” and whether to involve learners in the process of assessing, for example with the use of the Portfolio of Intercultural Competence developed in the Intercultural Assessment (INCA) project (Lázár 2007, 31). Some researchers (e.g. Bandura 2007, 97) point to ethical problems as it is difficult for the teacher to remain impartial or indifferent when delicate issues are discussed and her/his subjective opinion may influence the process of assessment. Selected teaching materials were evaluated from the perspective of ICC providing an inconsistent conclusion. While Aleksandrowicz-PĊdich (2007, 35-56) finds EFL materials as assisting EFL teachers well other researchers are of the opposite opinion. Many FLT materials do not assist teachers in developing the ICC of their learners treating culture as supplementary, and as a result teachers are tempted to ignore them if pressed for time. KaszyĔski’s analysis (2009) of German as FL materials revealed a concentration on communicative competence only resulting in limited development of ICC among adult learners. Krawiec (2010, 139152), after a careful analysis of a selected series, concludes that the EFL materials concentrate on the objective culture in Weaver’s term, while Piórkowska (2005) notes that some EFL materials can even enhance stereotypes (e.g. gender roles). Spychaáa (2010, 139-152) has analysed cultural information in the materials for Spanish as FL and observed that it is the same regardless of the language proficiency levels. Some researchers who seriously treat the challenge of developing ICC point out some limitations connected with learners. For example, Cháopek (2008b, 229-240) points to the possible problem with lack of interest of learners who focus on the final exams, and ICC is not being evaluated there. Some may even have a negative attitude to the target culture and refuse to study it. There are challenges concerning age and language level of the learners. Cultural components are more easily targeted at more mature learners and ones able to use L2 in communication. Still, it is younger learners that are more open to new ideas (Chromiec 2004). Some studies point to the difficulty of developing communicative skills in the foreign language classroom. Some learners, even at fairly high levels of language development (e.g. prospective EFL teachers), are unwilling to communicate in their L2 (Yashima 2002; Mystkowska-Wiertelak and Pietrzykowska 2011) which may be a result of a different international posture (a termed coined by Yashima) or not enough competence and opportunities to practice communication skills.

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6. Conclusions This brief analysis of the challenges of ICC development in the FL context leads to several tentative conclusions. First of all, it is evident that the process of ICC development is long and full of obstacles and is dependent of many factors. Various teaching practices focussing on ICC development need to be evaluated before they can be recommended for the classroom. The level of ICC development among FL teachers requires further research as we cannot go too far in evaluating all FL teachers’ ICC competence if the data are collected from low numbers of teachers. Explicit ICC development during FL teacher preparatory programmes is needed and there is some evidence that they may be successful (Romanowski 2011; Siek-Piskozub 2012). In the early stages of L2 education (very young learners and at low language levels) ICC can be focussed on in L1 (e.g. during L1 classes, civic education, culture studies etc.) as ICC should be the goal of the entire society and not only the target of FLE. However, FL teachers need to get involved more actively in the process of their ICC (self) development and in the stimulation of the ICC in their learners.

Bibliography Aleksandrowicz-PĊdich, Lucyna. 2007. “InterkulturowoĞü w ksztaáceniu jĊzykowym w Polsce i innych krajach europejskich.” In Nauczanie jĊzyków obcych – Polska a Europa, edited by Hanna Komorowska, 3956. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo SWPS Academica. Alred, Geof, Mike Byram and Mike Fleming, eds. 2003. Intercultural Experience and Education. Clevedon, Buffalo, Toronto, Sydney: Multilingual Matters. Bachman, Lyle F. 1990. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bandura, Ewa. 2007. Nauczyciel jako mediator interkulturowy. Kraków: Tertium. Barna, Laray M. 1998. “Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication.” In Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication, edited by Milton Bennett, 173-188. Boston: Intercultural Press. Bennett Milton. 1993. “Towards Ethnorelativism. A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity.” In Education for the Intercultural Experience, edited by Michael R. Paige. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press.

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Biaáek, Magdalena. 2009. Ksztaácenie miĊdzykulturowe w edukacji jĊzykowej. Wrocáaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT – Wrocáawskie Wydawnictwo OĞwiatowe. Byram, Michael. 1997. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byram, Michael and Carrol Morgan. 1994. Teaching-and-Learning Language-and-Culture. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Canale, Michael. 1983. “From Communicative Competence to Communicative Language Pedagogy.” In Language and Communication, edited by Jack C. Richards and Richard W. Schmidt, 2-27. London: Longman. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain. 1980. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing.” Applied Linguistics 1:1-47. Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Zoltán Dörnyei and Sarah Thurell. 1995. “A Pedagogical Framework for Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications.” Issues in Applied Linguistics 6:5-35. Celce-Murcia, Marianne. 2007.“Rethinking the Role of Communicative Competence in Language Teaching.” In Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning, edited by Eva Alcon Soler and Maria Pilar Safonta Jords, 41-59. Dordrecht: Springer. Chalhoub-Deville, Michaline and Craig Deville. 2005. “A Look Back at and Forward to What Language Testers Measure.” In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Training, edited by Eli Hinkel, 815-833. Mahawah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Cháopek, Zofia. 2008a. “The Intercultural Approach to EFL Teaching and Leaning.” English Teaching Forum 46/4, 10-19. —. 2008b. “Intercultural Education in a Foreign Language Classroom: Preparing our Learners for Participation in the Multicultural World.” In Linguistische Treffen in Wrocáaw 2: Linguistica et res cotidianae, edited by Iwona Bartoszewicz, Joanna SzczĊk and Artur Tworek, 229240. Wrocáaw – Dresden: Neisse Verlag. —. 2009. „Nauczanie kultury na lekcji jĊzyka obcego w Polsce: wyniki badaĔ kwestionariuszowych.” JĊzyki Obce w Szkole 1:61-68. Chomsky, Noam. 1959. “A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour.” In Readings in the Psychology of Language, edited by Leon A. Jakobovits and Murray S. Mirron, 142-143. New York: Prentice Hall.

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Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. 2001. Strasbourg, Cambridge: Council of Europe Press, Cambridge University Press. Corbett, John. 2003. An Intercultural Approach to English Lanquaqe Teaching. Clevedon: Multilinqual Matters. European Language Portfolio. 2005. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Hall, Edward. 1959. The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. Hofstede, Geert. 1986. “Cultural Differences in Teaching and Learning.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 10:301-320. —. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: A Software of Mind. London: McGraw-Hill. Hymes, Dell. 1972. “On Communicative Competence.” In Sociolinguistics, edited by John B. Pride and Janet Holmes, 269-293. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Johnson, Marysia. 2004. A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition. Binghamton: Yale University Press. Kapciak, Alina, Leszek Korporowicz and Andrzej Tyszko, eds. 1995. Komunikacja miĊdzykulturowa: zbliĪenia i impresje. Warszawa: GK Poligrafia. Kapciak, Alina, Leszek Korporowicz and Andrzej Tyszko, eds. 1996. Komunikacja miĊdzykulturowa: zdarzenia i spotkania. Warszawa: Inter Graf. KaszyĔski, Mateusz. 2009. „TreĞci podrĊczników a rozwój kompetencji interkulturowej w nauczaniu jĊzyków obcych osób dorosáych”, PhD diss., PoznaĔ: Adam Mickiewicz University. Krawiec, Marek. 2010. „Stereotypy kulturowe w kontekĞcie nauczania jĊzyka angielskiego.” In Heteronomie glottodydaktyki. KsiĊga jubileuszowa z okazji szeĞüdziesiĊciolecia urodzin prof. dr hab. Teresy Siek-Piskozub, edited by Zdzisáaw Wąsik and Aleksandra Wach, 139152. PoznaĔ: Instytut Filologii Angielskiej. Komorowska, Hanna, ed. 1988. ûwiczenia komunikacyjne w nauce jĊzyka obcego. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. Kramsch, Claire. 1993. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krawiec, Marek. 2010. „Stereotypy kulturowe w kontekĞcie nauczania jĊzyka angielskiego.” In Heteronomie glottodydaktyki. KsiĊga jubileuszowa z okazji szeĞüdziesiĊciolecia urodzin prof. dr hab. Teresy Siek-Piskozub, edited by Zdzisáaw Wąsik and Aleksandra Wach, 139152. PoznaĔ: Instytut Filologii Angielskiej.

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Lázár, Ildikó. 2007. “Guidelines for the Teaching of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC).” In Developing and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. A Guide for Language Teachers and Teacher Educators, edited by Ildikó Lázár, Martina Huber-Kriegler, Denise Lussier, Gabriela S. Matei and Christine Peck, 5-11. Strasbourg: European Centre for Modern Languages. —. No date. “Incorporating Culture-Related Activities in Foreign Language Teaching,” accessed August 11, 2007, http://www.ecml.at/mtp2/lccinte/results/downloads/6-3-3.pdf. McKay, Sandra L. 2001. “Literature as Content for ESL/EFL.” In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd edition), edited by Marianne Celce-Murcia, 319-332. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Mikuáowski-Pomorski, Jerzy. 2006. Jak narody porozumiewają siĊ ze sobą w komunikacji miĊdzykulturowej i komunikacji medialnej. Kraków: Universitas. Mystkowska-Wiertelak, Anna and Agnieszka Pietrzykowska. 2011. “L2 Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and International Posture in the Polish Educational Context.” Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching 1:119-134. Nazari, Ahmad. 2007. “EFL Teachers’ Perception of the Concept of Communicative Competence.” ELT Journal 61: 202-210. Owczarek, Dorota. 2010. “Dialogic Approach to the Evaluation of Intercultural Communicative Competence in Pre-service English Language Teacher Training.” PhD diss., PoznaĔ: Adam Mickiewicz University. Piórkowska, Anna. 2005. „Are English Coursebooks Stereotype-Free? A Case Study of the Project Series.” MA thesis, PoznaĔ: Adam Mickiewicz University. Risager, Karen. 2005. Foreword to Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Competence: An International Investigation, edited by Lies Sercu, Ewa Bandura, Paloma Castro, Leah Davcheva, Chryssa Laskaridou, Ulla Lundgren, Maria del Carmen Méndez García and Phyllis Ryan, vii-ix. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Róg, Tomasz. 2012.“An Investigation into the Impact of Study Abroad Programmes on Tertiary Students’ Intercultural Communicative Competence.” Ph.D. diss., PoznaĔ: Adam Mickiewicz University. Sapir, Edward. 1958. Culture, Language and Personality. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sercu, Lies, Ewa Bandura, Paloma Castro, Leah Davcheva, Chryssa Laskaridou, Ulla Lundgren, Maria del Carmen Méndez García and Phyllis Ryan, eds. 2005. Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural

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Communication. An International Investigation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sheils, Joe. 1988. Communication in the Modern Languages Classroom. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Publishing and Documentation Service. Siek-Piskozub, Teresa. 2012. “Use of Simulations for the Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence in EFL Teacher Education.” In International Symposium on Language and Communication: Research Trends and Challenges. Proceedings Book. Izmir: Izmir University, 2277-2289. Spychaáa, Maágorzata. 2007. “Model kompetencji interkulturowej a kryteria oceny materiaáów nauczania na przykáadzie podrĊczników do nauki jĊzyka hiszpaĔskiego.” In Dydaktyka jĊzyków obcych na początku XXI wieku, edited by Maria Jodáowiec and Anna NiĪegorodcew, 267-274. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu JagielloĔskiego. Van Ek, Jan A. 1986. Objectives for Foreign Language Learning: Scope. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press. Van Ek Jan A. and Lewis, G. Alexander. 1975. The Threshold Level. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Publishing and Documentation Service. Van Ek, Jan A. and John, L.M. Trim. 1993. Threshold Level 1990. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press. Weaver, Gary R. 1993. “Understanding and Coping with Cross-cultural Adjustment Stress”. In Education for Intercultural Experience, edited by Michael R. Paige, 137-168. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1991. Crosscultural Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyer. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding Cultures through their Key Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whorf, Benjamin L. 1956. Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Yashima, Tomoko. 2002. “Willingness to Communicate in a Second Language: The Japanese EFL Context.” Modern Language Journal 6:54-66.

Notes 1

The criticism of lack of theoretical anchoring of strategic competence can be found, for example, in Chalhoub-Deville and Deville, (2005: 882). 2 We refer here to Whorf (1956) and Sapir (1958).

CHAPTER THREE NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CONCEPTUALISATION OF ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES SKILLS

ANNA NIĩEGORODCEW

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to present the changing perspective of the conceptualisation of EAP skills. The theoretical considerations presented are contextualised within Polish academia, where English as an Additional Language is changing its status from a foreign language to a lingua franca. This chapter combines a methodological view of developing language skills in English as an Additional Language (EAL) and a discourse analytic view of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) with a sociocultural approach, which focuses on awareness raising among EAP speakers and writers as regards their participation in academic communities. The legitimate participation model and other sociocultural models are proposed as theoretical background for non-native students’ EAP skills development. Pedagogical implications are drawn from the author’s MA seminars in applied linguistics and an international studentcentred project.

1. Introduction The aim of this chapter is to present the changing perspective of the conceptualisation of English for Academic Purposes skills. The changing perspective refers especially to two aspects of EAP skills development; first, to the status of English as a global language in academic communication, and secondly, to the contextualised approach to English language use in the academia.

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EAP is classified as a branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), an expanding field in English language teaching since the late 70s. At that time teaching EAP was distinguished as an academic variety of teaching ESP (Strevens 1977). While teaching ESP has been directed, first of all, towards non-academic students who need to develop basic speaking and writing skills in occupational English in order to seek employment in English speaking countries and institutions, EAP aims at the development of students’ advanced oral and written language skills in various academic fields to enable them to successfully function in the academic world, where English has gradually become the primary language for international research, publishing and teaching. In general, what distinguishes EAP courses from ordinary English for General Purposes (EGP) courses is their focus on students’ specific needs and their preoccupation with syllabus design and teaching materials development based on those needs, with an underlying assumption that students’ needs can be accurately diagnosed and syllabuses and teaching materials can meet those needs. It has been also assumed that if students are provided with an appropriate type of texts and specialist discourse, their skills in using language for specific academic purposes will automatically follow (Hutchinson and Waters 1987). The aim of EAP courses in science, technology or medicine is to develop novices’ oral and written skills, drawing on specific genre of international academics in those fields. The Competency Framework for Teachers of EAP compiled by the British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes provides the following categories relating to academic practice: Academic Contexts, Disciplinary Differences, Academic Discourse, Personal Learning, Development and Autonomy (Competency Framework 2008). In each of them EAP teachers should develop specific competencies/skills. However, it is not only global EAP for international communication that should be taken into account. Local contexts, in particular in teaching EAP in humanities, must be also considered as points of reference, both as local professional contexts and as local discourse contexts. For instance, while teaching legal English to future lawyers in Poland, EAP teachers should teach the legal English required in Poland or other EU countries, taking into account what lawyers need in their profession in those countries and what discourse genres have already been developed in those contexts (Bhatia et al. 2008). The awareness of contextual aspects of EAP skills is present in the BALEAP Competency Framework for Teachers of EAP. The framework makes British EAP teachers aware that they should take into account

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“contexts and requirements of university courses”, as well as that “outcome tasks […] should be in line with the cultural practices of the university” and that they should “guide students to investigate the genres […] of their specific discourse communities” (Competency Framework 2008). Thus, present global trends in teaching English co-occur with an increased awareness of a specific character of the contexts in which EAP is used by native and non-native speakers and writers. In particular, the changing status of the English language draws our attention to discourse analysis of academic English produced by native and non-native speakers (Ventola and Mauranen 1996). Secondly, the level of development of first language skills is also considered as an important factor affecting the development of EAP skills by non-native speakers (Kusiak 2009). Finally and most importantly, EAL students’ new identities as members of an academic community is another related issue. Since they are non-native users of English and beginners in their disciplines, they are bound to be what Lave and Wenger (1991) call “legitimate peripheral participants” of academic communities both in their disciplines and in EAP. Summing up, the globalization of academic communication through EAP may be perceived both as an opportunity for academics and students all over the world and as a threat to their national and cultural identity. The impact of the above issues in teaching English will be discussed from the Polish perspective.

2. From teaching English as a Foreign Language to teaching English for Academic Purposes: the Polish perspective Developing English language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – was first postulated in the theory of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and used in classroom practice in the Audio-Lingual Method (Richards and Rogers 1986). In the 50s and 60s of the 20thcentury, it was a considerable methodological innovation in that it specified language skills, in particular aural/oral skills and practical classroom teaching techniques to develop them (Rivers 1968). The reference norms in developing English skills were those of educated native speakers, admittedly, simplified to the current proficiency level of non-native students. It should be borne in mind, however, that at the time of the rise and fall of the Audio-Lingual Method, the context of teaching English to speakers of other languages was quite different from the present situation, and English was taught and learned as a second or foreign language rather

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than a language for international communication. English was not considered either the main global lingua franca then nor was the concept of English for Academic Purposes known at that time. In Poland, due to political reasons, it was Russian that was taught as a first compulsory foreign language, starting from the 5th grade of the primary school, and English on a par with French and German, was taught as a second foreign language, only at the secondary grammar school level. Both Russian, English and other foreign languages were taught, first, according to the principles of the Grammar-Translation Method as “languacultures” that is, as languages closely connected with the target nations’ cultures (Risager 2006). Later, when the Audio-Lingual Method, the Cognitive-Code Method and the Communicative Approach were introduced one by one into the methodological training of English Studies students, the British and American “languaculture” approach co-existed in EFL teacher education with the language skills development approach (Komorowska 2007). While English for Specific Purposes studies, and following them, English for Academic Purposes studies, based on students needs’ analysis and English language discourse analysis, have been developing in Western Europe since the 80s due to the unification of Europe, the growing internationalisation of research and teaching, as well as owing to the advances in electronic communication technology, in Poland in the postmartial law period, that is, in the 80’s, higher education policy was still mainly focused on its local problems and unable for political reasons to adopt EAP standards in academic research, publishing policy and students’ education. In consequence, until the end of the 80s very few Polish university graduates were literate in academic English needed in their field of studies. On the other hand, those who studied English were usually highly motivated and, even without contacts with native speakers, were able to develop English for General Purposes skills to high levels of proficiency. It was only due to the political and sociocultural changes of 1989 and the early 90s, to the Bologna Process aiming at the unification of the European educational system, initiated in 1999, and in particular, to the Polish accession to the European Union in 2004, together with the Polish Higher Education Law of 2005 that unified EAP standards have been gradually introduced into the Polish higher education system. Moreover, the development of EAP courses has coincided with an expanding role of English in academia and an increasing awareness among academics that English has become a global language of international academic communication (Crystal 1997).

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However, current Polish academia is diversified in its understanding of the process of globalisation and the approval of the use of EAP in research and teaching. The diversification ranges from the full acceptance and application of global standards, involving EAP standards, for instance, in medical studies, to the resistance of globalisation and EAP, supported by finding niches of expertise requiring the use of Polish for Academic Purposes (Duszak and Lewkowicz 2008). It seems that this resistance has two reasons. The first one refers to academic teachers’ and researchers’ English language proficiency. Those who have acquired at least a working knowledge of English in speech and writing can more easily adopt the global standards of EAP use in research and teaching. Yet, the other more profound reason for the resistance to globalisation in academia, involving EAP use, is the questioning of the rationale behind the introduction of the English language as a linguistic medium of change and unification. Those for whom the English language is perceived as a foreign language associated with British or American culture rather than a language of international communication, can find the imposition of global EAP standards arbitrary and irritating. In the former group of academics are, for instance, those specialising in Polish language and culture (Pisarek 1999). Those academics frequently feel oppressed by the dominance of the English language. The controversy runs deep because it refers to the issue of academic identity and freedom. Doubtlessly, a part of local academic independence and cultural identity is lost when speaking and writing in one’s national language, particularly in humanities, is replaced with an imposed requirement to use English.

3. EAP skills for functioning in the global academic world and local contexts of EAP use EAP skills for functioning in the global academic world are in particular those needed to give oral presentations, taking part in seminars, debates, conferences, as well as those needed to write academic papers, dissertations, MA theses and diploma projects. Important skills required of academics nowadays are also skills needed in e-communication. EAP skills development refers not only to teaching students how to use particular expressions and grammatical structures but also how to use rhetorical structures characteristic of particular genres, that is, types of academic discourse used by international academics both in speaking and writing, for instance, how to write abstracts and introductions to research papers, as well as how to give power point presentations (Hyland 2009).

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English language courses for academic purposes in English as an additional language context usually model non-native students’ oral and written skills on the genre produced in a given discipline by native speakers of English (Swales 1990). On the one hand, such a teaching strategy seems to be justified since native EAP standards are associated with the prestige and scientific achievements of highly developed English speaking countries. Moreover, in the eyes of non-native academic teachers and students of English, native speakers generally retain their norm of reference in English language use. On the other hand, however, such an approach has been questioned and replaced with a philosophy which admits non-native users of English to the community of legitimate “owners” of English as a lingua franca and participants of international academic discourse communities (Norton 1997). From the second/foreign language teaching perspective, it is important to assess the level of students’ first language speaking and writing skills before trying to develop their EAP skills. For instance, secondary school leaving exams in Poland, both in English as a foreign language and in Polish as a mother tongue, have an enormous and mostly negative backwash effect on classroom teaching and, in consequence, on students’ speaking and writing skills (Wall 2005), which has its impact in EAP courses. University students used to learning for an exam have problems with agency in EAP use since they are more willing to mechanically model conventional genres than to adapt them to own ideas and personal styles. Additionally, present day students, who are “digital natives” used to the audio-visual modes of electronic communication, find it more difficult than previous generations to read and write longer academic texts (Kress 2003). Developing EAP skills, as has been said, is based on students’ needs analysis. In turn, a needs analysis is impossible without realizing the purposes for which English is learned. Yet undergraduates are usually not fully aware what academic communities require of them. The status of “peripheral participants” of academic communities both in their disciplines and in EAP may be very uncomfortable for students before they realize that they can also view themselves as “legitimate participants” of academic communities (Lave and Wenger 1991). According to Hyland, academic skills are rarely made explicit to the students, as well as it is not clearly explained to the undergraduates that “[e]ntering the academy means making a ‘cultural shift’ in order to take on identities as members of those communities” (Hyland 1994). What Hyland (1994) writes of students is also true of mature but not skillful members of academic communities in non-native contexts. EAP

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may be perceived as alien to the speakers’ and writers’ individual styles developed in their national speaking and writing traditions (Taylor and Chen 1991). What underlies those different styles are usually deeply rooted cultural values, which are particularly difficult to modify, especially if they are subconscious. For instance, deference to authorities in academic writing, more highly valued in Polish academia than in English speaking countries, may result in the excessive use of inconclusive statements and hedging strategies in Polish academics’ papers in comparison with native speakers’ articles (Hyland ibid). Varied styles, however, do not have to be always discarded as inappropriate. They have their raison d’être in international contexts of spoken EAP use, where more flexible genre and style norms are tolerated in oral presentations, conferences and debates. In consequence, non-native academics and undergraduates are much more comfortable when giving oral presentations than when submitting written works. My conclusion on observing oral negotiations in an international syllabus design project was that “the main function of speaking in EAP was achieving the proposed goals of the projects. In other words, EAP was instrumental to the general objectives of the projects, which involved designing courses of studies in European universities” (NiĪegorodcew 2011, 92). In another international project I concluded that building up a community level between the international interlocutors may be reached in spite of the misunderstandings, on the basis of some common values, a degree of tolerance of different values and, what seems to be most important, an effort that is considered to be of relevance to all members of the community (NiĪegorodcew 2013b). There are also degrees of acceptability in written EAP, depending on the purpose of writing. Very strict native speaker EAP standards are as a rule required of those who wish to submit their research papers for publication, in particular in most prestigious scientific journals. However, it should be borne in mind that globalization processes and using English as a lingua franca by more and more non-native EAP users have their impact on EAP standards. Non-native EAP users are gradually establishing their position and status as legitimate participants of academic communities, and, in consequence, EAP standards become more flexible and some EAP variability is tolerated, even in papers submitted for publication (Mauranen and Ranta 2009). Through practice in listening to authentic lectures and reading authentic academic texts (native or non-native) and, most importantly, through speaking and writing in EAP to express their own ideas, students acquire knowledge in their disciplines, combined with EAP genre

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awareness. The question arises, however, whether they are aware that the genres they learn are not completely neutral in the ideological sense of the word. Critical discourse analysis has disclosed the underlying motives, including the political ones, of particular genres, styles and strategies in EAP (Fairclough 1995). Thus, while developing EAP skills, English teachers must be also aware that EAP standards are not completely neutral. As Jones, Turner and Street observe: The level at which we should be rethinking higher education and its writing practices should not simply be that of skills and effectiveness but rather of epistemology – what counts as knowledge and who has authority over it; of identity – what the relation is between forms of writing and the constitution of self and agency; and of power – how partial and ideological positions and claims are presented as neutral and as given through the writing requirements and processes of feedback and assessment that make up academic activity. (Jones, Turner and Street 1999, XVI, as cited in Hyland 2009,44)

It seems that Polish students are hardly aware of the underlying motives of writing and speaking practices in the academic disciplines they study. The English language, including EAP, is generally perceived by them only as a language of opportunity, which may help them in pursuing successful careers (NiĪegorodcew 2013a). Such an approach to English, understandable under sociopolitical circumstances, may lead to an uncritical accommodation to vague target conventions, rather than to the development of professional skills and identities of non-native users of EAP. It should be EAP teachers’ aim to try to make students aware not only of different discourse genre conventions but also of the “ownership” of English they can aspire to through making sense of those conventions and adapting them to local cultures and personal styles.

4. Developing EAP skills in class Contemporary classroom methods and techniques of teaching English for Academic Purposes combine the Genre Analysis Approach and the Integrated Skills Approach. The Integrated Skills Approach makes classroom practice more authentic by combining the four major skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in integrated activities, whereas the Genre Analysis Approach focuses students’ attention on authentic pieces of spoken and written EAP, e.g. through listening to authentic lectures and reading authentic research articles.

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Additionally, IC Technology is used not only to make the teaching/learning process more attractive and appealing to the audio-visual modes, but also to assist cognitive processing of verbal material, e.g. in using concordances to process spoken and written corpuses of authentic academic discourse (Baker 2006). Collecting corpuses of written and spoken native and non-native EAP (e.g. research articles and recorded lectures) may provide EAP students with authentic and interesting materials for comparison of rhetorical structures and discourse markers used by native and non-native speakers (Hyland 2005). The overall purpose of such comparisons is to raise students’ awareness of the differences between native and non-native, as well as expert and novice EAP uses of those structures and markers. What the EAP classrooms seem to be still lacking is an awareness of sociocultural components of EAP skills. Skills development practice, admittedly based on authentic target language materials, does not take sufficiently into account diverse sociocultural contexts of English language use. Students are made aware of the necessity of using authentic discourse but the critical discourse analysis has little influence in class. In other words, underlying sociocultural motives of writing and speaking practice students are exposed to are not given enough prominence in the assigned tasks (Zalewski 2004). Thus, what can be observed is a discrepancy between developments of sociocultural and sociolinguistic theory, such as the situated learning model, the legitimate peripheral participation model and the community of practice model (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998) and EAP classroom practice. Students should not only be provided with target discourse samples as practice models but they should be also made aware of their own agency in local and global academic communities in order to actively participate in them as legitimate speakers and writers (WilczyĔska 2002). In other words, authentic discourse must be coupled with autonomous participation. The awareness of sociocultural aspects of speaking and writing in the disciplinary academic communities and students’ agency in those academic communities are not easy to attain for undergraduates and graduate students in Poland for various reasons, their lack of autonomy and lack of familiarity with other cultures being probably the most important ones. I believe that developing EAP skills can be enhanced by more autonomous forms of instruction, such as student-centred seminars and group project work, whereas cultural diversity can be introduced in class through international and intercultural student-centred projects.

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The following examples of problems and solutions in developing EAP skills are derived from my experience as an MA supervisor in applied linguistics, and as an editor of an intercultural reader based on studentcentred projects (NiĪegorodcew 2010; NiĪegorodcew et. al 2011). Successful completion of diploma projects and MA theses can be viewed from the perspective of the formation of graduates’ new identities. They should identify as members of disciplinary communities through, first, becoming familiar with the discipline and, secondly, negotiating their place in the academic disciplinary community. Students’ research projects should be linked with other relevant studies in the discipline. Since the negotiating process takes time, it seems that the main function of two-year long MA seminars is to make students aware of how they can use background readings and other authors’ contributions in order to find their own study area. Novices as a rule choose whatever studies are available and propose to replicate them in their own research. It is only through a series of negotiations with a supervisor that a novice MA writer realizes that the proposed study should rather ask questions relevant in their school, community and country because only such questions can provide interesting answers. While designing research methods, carrying out research and analyzing its results, MA students discover that their research can contribute to the bulk of knowledge in their discipline. Consequently, they can identify themselves as legitimate participants of the disciplinary academic community. Finally, however, there is a serious stumbling block between what usually counts in the eyes of global academic communities as academic practice and what MA and even PhD students write as their theses and dissertations. In order to be treated as a legitimate participant of an academic community, one has to publish (cf. the “publish or perish” informal principle of academia), preferably in English in recognised journals. The majority of university graduates never reach that stage. Thus, it is the role of academic supervisors to encourage MA students to try to publish research papers based on their research projects. The optimal first step to publishing should be for the students to give presentations at international conferences. As has been said, oral presentations are much easier than written contributions, and they may transform novices in the academic discipline into legitimate participants, who can more easily submit their papers for publication. The question of how successful they can be is another matter. On the one hand, English as a lingua franca (ELF) is acknowledged as a legitimate variety of non-native English language users (Mauranen and

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Ranta 2009); on the other hand, however, it seems that in the case of papers submitted for publication what Bartholomae wrote twenty five years ago is still valid for academic gatekeepers: Every time a student sits down to write for us […] he has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community. (Bartholomae 1986,4, cited in Hyland 2009, 6)

However, it should be realized that we refers at present to both native and non-native English language users who are expert members of an academic discipline and it is not primarily the status of a non-native speaker that bars students way to publish their research papers. As far as international student-centred projects are concerned, their main value lies in their potential in forming local communities of practice. According to Wenger (1998), they are formed by mutual engagement in an activity, by an endeavour that is considered to be of relevance to all members of the community and through a common repertoire of language styles (Young 2009, 146). From the EAP skills point of view, international students engaged in a joint project should be at a similar level of English language proficiency, they should be equally active in the project and the project outcomes should be relevant to all of them. In the international project I co-ordinated (NiĪegorodcew et al. 2011), Polish MA students in the applied linguistics specialisation of English Studies proposed project topics in response to Ukrainian students’ queries about Polish culture. The Polish students’ projects were part of their MA seminar assignments and were delivered as oral presentations in class. Their use of oral EAP was fluent and presentations were fully professional. Later, however, the student authors faced considerable challenges in editing their research results and producing research articles based on oral presentations to be published in a book. Viewing that process from the students’ identity perspective, it seems that the MA students identified easily with their roles of seminar participants and presenters, but they were not ready yet to play the roles of authors of research papers. Their academic classroom oral skills were developed adequately, whereas their written skills lagged behind. Another challenge the students faced was their lack of awareness of whom the addressees of their projects were, since the Ukrainian students, who originally were supposed to research topics of interest to Polish students never completed them and did not provide feedback on the Polish students’ projects. However, in spite of all the shortcomings, the potential

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of the project was such that in the following year groups of Polish and Ukrainian students managed to design new projects on their cultures and presented them to each other in a Polish-Ukrainian student exchange programme. The above example of the use of EAP in a student-centred international project indicates that developed skills in using spoken and written English enable university students to engage in expert academic activities, including publishing, and to negotiate their identities as legitimate participants of academic communities. It should be added, however, that the development of EAP skills should be guided and supported by university lecturers and project coordinators.

5. Conclusion New developments in the conceptualisation of EAP skills refer to teaching English as a global language in academic communication while not losing sight of the local contexts in which EAP is used. Such local contexts are particularly relevant to consider in teaching EAP in the humanities, where local professional standards and specific discourse communities must be taken into account in English language teaching. Although English as a global language for international academic purposes is most frequently identified with standard English as used by native speakers, non-native academic speakers have already gained access to expert disciplinary communities as fully legitimate participants. In consequence, EAP standards have become more flexible. Variable standards in EAP are particularly noticeable in oral presentations but they can be also observed in published research articles. The main teaching approaches to the development of EAP skills are at present, first, integrating language skills in authentic academic tasks, and, secondly, using authentic disciplinary discourse to raise students’ awareness of the specific rhetorical strategies and discourse markers characteristic of EAP. The third component, which seems to be underdeveloped, is sociocultural awareness raising. In order to raise students’ awareness in using EAP in non-native contexts, teachers should take into account students’ first language skills for academic purposes and local academic discourse traditions. Introducing students to EAP standards and requirements of global academic communities, English teachers should also emphasise the role students can play as legitimate participants of academic disciplinary communities by encouraging them to prepare their projects and theses in answer to local issues, while simultaneously addressing a global academic audience. First

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and foremost, EAP teachers should develop students’ sense of the ownership of English as their medium of academic expression. The discrepancy between the developments of sociocultural and sociolinguistic theory and EAP practice observed in Polish academic classrooms in that students are rarely made aware of sociocultural motives of speaking and writing practices and they hardly take the roles of legitimate participants of academic communities could be ascribed to students’ lack of autonomy and their lack of familiarity with other cultures. Thus, EAP skills development can be enhanced by intercultural student-centred projects, in which they could take an active part as EAP speakers and writers.

Bibliography Baker, Paul. 2006. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Bartholomae, David. 1986. “Inventing the University,” Journal of Basic Writing 5:4-23. Bhatia, Vijay, Christopher Candlin and Jan Engberg, eds. 2008. Legal Discourse Across Cultures and Systems. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Competency Framework for Teachers of English for Academic Purposes. 2008. British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes (BALEAP). http://www.baleap.org.uk/media/uploads/pdfs/teap-competencyframework.pdf. Crystal, David. 1997. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dudley-Evans, Tony and Maggie Jo St John. 1998. Developments in ESP: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duszak, Anna and Jo Lewkowicz. 2008. “Publishing Academic Texts in English: A Polish Perspective,” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7:108-20. Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman. Hutchinson, Tom and Alan Waters. 1987. English for Specific Purposes: A Learning-Centred Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hyland, Ken. 1994. “Hedging in Academic Writing and EAP Textbooks.” English for Specific Purposes 13:239-56.

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—. 2005. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum. —. 2009. Academic Discourse. London: Continuum. Jones, Carys, JoanTurner and Brian Street, eds. 1999. Students Writing in the University. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Komorowska, Hanna. 2007. Metodyka nauczania jĊzyków obcych w Polsce (1957- 2007) z wyborem tekstów z lat 1957-2007 [ Foreign Language Teaching Methodology in Poland in the Years 1957-2007 with a Selection of Texts]. Warszawa: CODN. Kress, Gunther. 2003. Literacy in the New Media Age. New York: Routledge. Kusiak, Monika. 2009. “Rola jĊzyka polskiego w uczeniu siĊ jĊzyków obcych” [The Role of the Polish Language in Foreign Language Learning]. In Problemy wspóáczesnej dydaktyki jĊzyków obcych [Contemporary Issues in Foreign Language Teaching], edited by Mirosáaw Pawlak, Marek Derenowski and Bartosz Wolski, 55-66. PoznaĔ-Kalisz: Adam Mickiewicz University. Lave, Jean and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mauranen, Anna and Elina Ranta, eds. 2009. English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. NiĪegorodcew, Anna. 2010. “Supervising Academic Writing: MA Theses and Licentiate Projects in Statu Nascendi.” In Ambiguity and the Search for Meaning: English and American Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century, edited by Maria Jodáowiec and Justyna Lesniewska, 231-40. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press. —. 2011. “Speaking in English for Academic Purposes in the Light of Lingua Franca English and Sociocultural Theory.” In Speaking and Instructed Foreign Language Acquisition, edited by Mirosáaw Pawlak, Ewa Waniek-Klimczak and Jan Majer, 84-95. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. —. 2013a. “English as a Lingua Franca in the Eyes of Polish Students.” In Awareness in Action: The Role of Consciousness in Language Acquisition, edited by Andrzej àyda and Konrad SzczĊĞniak, 241-251, Berlin: Springer. —. 2013b. “Local Cultures in English: Intercultural Communication in Educational Contexts.” In Issues in Teaching, Learning and Testing Speaking in a Second Language, edited by Mirosáaw Pawlak and Ewa Waniek-Klimczak. Berlin: Springer.

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NiĪegorodcew, Anna, Yakiv Bystrov and Marcin Kleban, eds. 2011. Developing Intercultural Competence through English: Focus on Ukrainian and Polish Cultures. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press. Norton, Bonny. 1997. “Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English.” TESOL Quarterly 31:409-29. Pisarek, Walery, ed. 1999. Polszczyzna 2000: OrĊdzie o stanie jĊzyka na przeáomie tysiącleci [The Polish Language 2000: An Address on the State of the Language at the Turn of the Millenium]. Kraków: Centre for Press Research, Jagiellonian University. Richards, Jack and Theodore Rodgers. 1986. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Risager, Karen. 2006. Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Rivers, Wilga. 1968. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Strevens, Peter. 1977. New Orientations in the Teaching of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, Gordon and Tingguang Chen. 1991. “Linguistic, Cultural, and Subcultural Issues in Contrastive Discourse Analysis: Anglo-American and Chinese Scientific Texts,” Applied Linguistics 12: 319-36. Ventola, Eija and Anna Mauranen, eds. 1996. Academic Writing: Intercultural and Textual Issues. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wall, Dianne. 2005. The Impact of High-Stakes Examinations on Classroom Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. WilczyĔska, Weronika, ed. 2002. Autonomizacja w dydaktyce jĊzyków obcych: Doskonalenie siĊ w komunikacji ustnej [Autonomy in Foreign Language Teaching: Developing Speaking Skills]. PoznaĔ: Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Young, Richard. 2009. Discursive Practice in Language Learning and Teaching. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Zalewski, Jan. 2004. Epistemology of the Composing Process: Writing in English for General Academic Purposes. Opole: Opole University Press.

CHAPTER FOUR HELPING LEARNERS TO PERFORM SKILLFULLY: WHAT NON-LANGUAGE SKILL TEACHERS CAN CONTRIBUTE KEITH JOHNSON

Abstract Communicative Language Teaching and Task-Based Language Teaching have, it can be claimed, significantly increased the bank of techniques we have available for helping learners to manage skilled language performance in ‘real’ communicative situations. However, language teachers are relative newcomers to the business of converting declarative into procedural knowledge, and one likely source of inspiration is to look at other non-linguistic skills where it is important to develop procedural knowledge. This chapter describes a research project undertaken at Lancaster University that considered the behaviours of nonlanguage skill teachers and their possible relevance for the foreign language teacher. The skill areas focused on in this research were classical music (voice training), sports, and civil aviation aircraft piloting. The results of this project suggest that there are interesting parallels between some of the concerns of trainers in these areas, and those of the language teacher. The latter may indeed have valuable lessons to learn from the former.

1. Introduction This chapter reports on a one-year research project entitled ‘Exploring the procedures used in non-linguistic skill teaching and assessing their relevance for language teaching’; we refer to the project as START (Skills

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Training And its Relevance to Teaching). The project, which began in 2005, was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and its aim was to look at some of the procedures and practices followed by teachers of subjects other than languages and to consider whether they are of relevance to the language teacher. The project was exploratory, and was scheduled to take just one year1. START considered three skill domains – music (classical singing), sport (table tennis) and flight simulation. One criterion for the selection of domains was to consider skills where procedural knowledge is important. Applied linguistics has long since distinguished between declarative knowledge (‘knowledge about’) and procedural knowledge (‘knowledge how to’) - (O'Malley and Chamot 1990; Ellis 1985; Johnson 1996). It is recognised that it is both important and difficult to convert declarative into procedural knowledge. In pre-communicative methodologies it was often assumed that declarative knowledge would convert itself almost effortlessly into procedural knowledge – if one taught learners about the present perfect for example (declarative knowledge), they would automatically be able to deploy it in communicative situations (procedural knowledge). Communicative language teaching has provided the insight that pedagogic effort is needed to convert declarative into procedural, and one of the main legacies of that movement has been to provide rich ‘activation techniques’ for achieving this. But, it may be argued, language teachers are newcomers to the business of converting declarative into procedural, and are likely to learn from other skills where procedural knowledge is equally important. This suggested that START should look in the direction of what were once called ‘skill’ subjects, like music and sports, rather than to so-called ‘content’ subjects2. A second criterion guiding domain selection relates to the notion of combinatorial skill. It is recognised that many skills have a high ‘combinatorial element’, with various sub-skills being performed at the same time. A major part of mastering such behaviours is the combinatorial element of being able to perform these sub-skills simultaneously. Piloting an aircraft is a case in point; landing a plane, for example, involves the coordination of various complex inputs and outputs, occurring at the same time. Halliday (1970), among others, argues that language use (particularly oral interaction) also has a high combinatorial component. To produce an acceptable utterance requires simultaneous selection from options along various parameters, including the grammatical, the lexical, the phonetic, appropriacy to speaker purpose, to context, to role relationships between interactants. Fluency may be regarded as the ability effortlessly to combine various sub-skills together in real time. Though communicative

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methodology has been concerned with fluency (Brumfit 1984), this is again an area where inspiration might be gained from other skill teachers. This is why flight simulation was selected as a domain. A pedagogic problem which both language teaching and flight simulation shares is how the co-ordinated, combinatorial nature of the activity may be broken down for teaching purposes, and this introduces the whole interesting question of part versus whole practice. As the flight trainer in this study so elegantly puts it: aeroplanes whizz through the sky; you can’t sort of chop it [the behaviour being taught] up into little bits.

2. Description of START Three case studies of teachers were undertaken, one in each of the identified domains (music, sports, flight simulation). The details: x A singing teacher (opera and classical song, referred to as T1) from the Royal Northern College of Music, UK. Students were a mixture of postgraduates and undergraduates. The hour-long classes were all performance-related, seen as preparation for performancerelated examinations, or auditions. In several classes, two or three students were singled out for instruction in front of a group. x A table tennis trainer (T2) from the University of Central Lancashire. The students were intermediate adults, taught together in pairs during 45 minute sessions. x A flight pilot trainer (T3) from Alteon Training UK Ltd (Boeing). The learners were First Officers training to be Captains. The central section of each session took place in a 737 full-motion flight simulator. There were briefing and debriefing sessions before and after, in a small classroom with a whiteboard and mock flight controls. Briefing and debriefing were one hour each, with four hours in the simulator (each trainee being pilot-in-charge for two hours). Training sessions were therefore six hours in total. The observed lessons were just one part of the overall training programme – the performance-related component. It is important to understand that if parallels can be found with language teaching classes, they are likely to apply only to certain parts of the programme – those associated with the development of oral fluency (‘performance’) skills. Trainers were visited three times over a period of about two weeks. In the first visit, a teaching session was observed. In the second, a further session was observed, this time followed by a stimulated recall in which the trainer watched the videotape of their lesson and commented on it. The third visit involved another teaching session, this time followed by an

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interview with the trainer. All materials were videotaped and transcribed. Transcriptions were then coded using procedures associated with ‘grounded theory’ (Strauss and Corbin 1998; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss 1987). Atlas.ti software was used for the coding procedure.

3. Findings Since the project was exploratory, the findings discussed below are suggestive rather than conclusive.

3.1. Adherence to an information processing view Discussions of FL performance in ‘real operating conditions’ commonly take place within an information-processing perspective. A central notion is that learners have a fixed amount of channel capacity for conscious processing. When new behaviours are first practised their performance consumes much channel capacity. The process of automisation (or proceduralization) makes sub-skills automatic, thus freeing channel capacity for higher-level skills. Some of the literature on task-based teaching is based on such notions (Johnson 1996; see also discussions on task complexity in Skehan 1994, and Bygate 1994), and is concerned with developing schedules of tasks which on the one hand avoid swamping channel capacity with over-complex operations, while at the same time gradually increasing task complexity to move learners towards more automatic performance of sub-skills. T3 (the flight instructor) and T2 (the table tennis trainer) appear to view training issues in similar terms. Thus in his interview, T3 notes that Pupils’ arousal increases with time as they get into the task, they can accept more information as time goes on. At another point he says: When you have a really good student, you can pile the pressure on by adding another problem for them to deal with. And again: The risk of course is overloading and that’s the last thing you want to do is overload them because they’ll stop learning. These are very much the terms in which some applied linguists conceptualise FL performance.

3.2. A sequence for performance-related practice: the ‘deep end’ strategy Both T1 and T2 follow a whole ĺ part practice sequence, as shown in Figure 1 which illustrates one of T1’s lessons:

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Performer (P) sings a piece from beginning to end T1 remains silent p P sings again from beginning to end, this time with T1 interrupting with comments p Feedback from ‘audience (the group of learners watching the performance) Figure 4–1. Sequence of events in a singing tutorial focusing on two 1st year undergraduate students performing, with an ‘audience’ of 10 students present

This sequence is similar to the so-called ‘deep-end strategy’ proposed for language teaching in relation to the communicative approach (Brumfit 1979; Johnson 1980). In this strategy, the traditional presentation ĺ practice ĺ free production sequence is replaced by one in which students first produce with available resources (free production), followed by teacher presentation of needed items (presentation) and controlled practice if felt necessary (practice). Several advantages have been claimed for this strategy. It is a perform ĺ teach rather than a teach ĺ perform sequence. By requiring the learner to perform before relevant teaching takes place, risk-taking skills are developed. A second advantage is that the procedure is needs-driven. Since the deep-end strategy has currency in relation to teaching non-language skills, it may stand as a model for performance-related training in general.

3.3. Needs-driven instruction The ‘deep-end’ strategy is needs-driven because the teacher focuses instruction round areas of need which reveal themselves during initial holistic performance. Sometimes however, the singing and table tennis teachers use a different strategy for identifying needs: they ask the learners themselves what they want to focus on. Here are two examples of T1 asking about needs: (1)

T1:

What do you want us to be thinking about while you’re singing?

(2)

T1:

OK Annabel, what do you want us to be thinking about, what do you need from us today?

As T1 says during the stimulated recall:

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(3)

T1:

what I always do is, I ask them what they want from the moment. I need to know what they want because you could choose any aspect.

These procedures – the deep-end strategy and asking learners about desired focus – are instructive regarding the role of the syllabus in performance-based teaching. Parts of the learners’ training may be carefully controlled by a syllabus, especially in the case of flight simulation where the specification of objectives is stated in great detail (Alteon 2002), but it often seems the case that the syllabus is acting as a check-list of items that need to be covered at some point, but not strongly suggesting an order in which they should be covered – a statement of what needs to be finally achieved rather than a pedagogical map of how it is to be covered. Perhaps it is fruitful to consider syllabuses in these terms when they relate to performance practice. It is likely that in all performance-skill domains, a large number of needs will reveal themselves. All our teachers realised that not all needs could be met at once, and a selective focus on needs was required. It was interesting to note how focused – almost to the point of stubbornness – T1 and T2 could be in refusing to be deflected away from the identified focus of the lesson. In the example below, the learner wants help with pronunciation, but the trainer insists on staying with the area which it was initially decided should be the lesson’s focus (the singer’s ‘line’ – producing a steady continuous flow of sound): (4)

Learner: There’s a vowel which is not right. T1: That’s really good, this is a really good start. You want to talk about line, right?

Information-processing considerations are sometimes given as the rationale for selective focus on needs. Here is T2 talking about this in his stimulated recall, and revealing a realistic estimate of his learner’s channel capacity: (5)

T2:

Now you can see at this stage that he’s actually completely forgotten about what his left arm is doing . . . but I hadn’t worried too much about that, the big area of concern is making sure that he plays the shot from the elbow, so I’m really focussing on that Interviewer:

Just on the one point . . .

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On the one point. If I try and then introduce his left arm and his feet, he’ll get muddled and lost again. It can only be one point at a time.

Needs analysis has of course been an established practice in language teaching since the 1970s. This is commonly based on competence needs – areas of language identified as being useful to learners in terms of eventual uses. It may be argued that the procedures discussed here are based on performance needs – shortcomings identified either by actual performance or by learner perception of performance requirements. Perhaps language teachers who wish to develop their learners’ performance skills should pay particular attention to performance needs, in the ways suggested above. The issue of selective focus on needs has been discussed in the language teaching literature. Brumfit (1977) for example suggests selective error correction for written work, and teacher training manuals often discuss the idea (Ur, 1996 has a section entitled Should all mistakes be corrected? which concludes that sometimes they should not). If there are teachers who remain uneasy with the practice of letting some errors pass uncorrected, the procedures of our non-language skill teachers may be reassuring.

3.4. Feedback and performance mistakes Johnson (1988) follows Corder (1981) by distinguishing between errors and mistakes. Errors are based on faulty or incomplete knowledge, while mistakes are caused by difficult performance conditions which lead learners to fail to ‘perform their competence’ (the phrase is from Ellis 1985). Mistakes are very common in language teaching; the learner who produces *He go instead of He goes is likely to be aware of the correct form, but has difficulty producing it in difficult operating conditions. In such cases it is a mistake. Johnson argues that teachers often treat mistakes as if they are errors, pointing out the correct form to the learner (who already knows it). This does not engage with the problem. Johnson (1988) suggests that a necessary condition for the eradication of a mistake is “a realization by the student that the performance he or she has given is flawed. The learner needs to know that a mistake has occurred” (p. 91) – it is surprising just how often learners do not realize they have made a mistake. He argues that perhaps “the best way of providing the necessary realization is by confronting the learner with the mismatch between flawed and model performance” (p. 93). This will

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involve showing the learner the mistake made, or even asking him to repeat it, in order to compare it with the correct form. The skill teachers show themselves well aware of the nature of performance mistakes and the fact that they are caused by difficult performance conditions. Here is T2 talking during his stimulated recall. He notes that the player he is watching ‘reverts back to type’, meaning that they fall back into mistakes made earlier: (6)

T2:

OK now in a competitive situation what tends to happen is that players revert back to type because it’s the most comfortable because the player wants to win and he’s played a certain way for the last ten fifteen years or whatever, why change something now. So this is quite a critical point within the coaching session, that the player tries to keep with this new technique. .

[Watches video of learner playing] And there we go, straight back to type. T2 is also aware that confronting the learner with a model is what is required in this situation. A few moments later in the stimulated recall he says: (7)

T2:

…I say [to the learner] you’ve gone back to your old habits and I’m pointing that out.... if he knows what he’s done, then you’re winning. So again I go back in... and give him a good model so he’s got that model... Again I’ve stepped down, given him a good model, then he can see what I look like, my body shape, where my back was.

There are also a number of examples in the data of where in order to ‘compare right with wrong’, learners are asked to reproduce a mistake. In the following example T1 is dealing with breath control and asks her pupil to practise poor and good breathing to note the difference: (8)

T1:

Do you feel a fine difference?

Student: I think so.

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Do you want to do it wrongly? Do you want to just keep it really open, open and bare and just allow the air to gush out of the mouth a bit, because that’s what it….it’s a little bit breathy. It gets a little bit breathy down through your middle.

Asking learners to reproduce mistakes is a procedure that is likely to be anathema to many language teachers who feel that the production of wrong forms should be avoided as much as possible. But perhaps there is a place for it, especially where one is dealing with performance-induced mistakes, as a means of enabling comparison between flawed performance and model. Johnson (1988) identifies the technique of reformulation as a way of comparing flawed performance and model, and it is possible to associate this technique with the trainers’ observations and practices as discussed above. Levenston (1978), Cohen (1983), Allwright (1988) and others draw a distinction between two ways of correcting wrong forms, particularly in writing. In reconstruction, learner mistakes and errors are simply corrected. If the learner were to rewrite the text after reconstruction, simply replacing wrong forms with the teacher corrections, the result would not contain wrong forms, but would not stand as a model, providing information about how a native speaker would have expressed the same meanings. In reformulation, on the other hand, the teacher rewrites a student essay, as far as possible preserving the intended meaning. This provides learners with a proper model to compare with their own flawed performance. Though there are logistical problems with the use of reformulation for the teaching of oral English, these may be overcome, and perhaps the technique is a better way of handling wrong forms, including mistakes resulting from difficult processing conditions.

3.5. Attention to affect All the trainers devoted a considerable amount of time to praising learners and providing positive reinforcement. Here are two interview comments which show how important the teachers regard positive feedback: (9)

T2:

making people feel as if they’re a good player often makes them actually a better player, more receptive to coaching

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(10)

T1:

and I wanted to say to X ‘well done’ because she’s a very unconfident girl, so I wanted to say to her ‘good point’

It is sometimes argued in the language teaching literature (MacIntyre and Gardner 1991; Wright 2005) that positive feedback is particularly important in language learning because using a foreign language often poses a direct threat to self-esteem (it is easy for learners to appear stupid and ‘make fools of themselves’). One might well imagine this to be a motivation where singing is concerned – an activity which may likewise pose threats to self-esteem. There are some interesting comments made by T2 and T3 indicating different motivations for positive reinforcement. It was noted earlier (quote 6 above) that the table tennis trainer showed himself well aware of the problem of performance errors occurring because of difficult performance conditions – competitive play in his case. It is interesting to note that his answer to this problem lies in providing fulsome affective support. To continue quotation (6) above: (11)

T2:

And there we go, straight back to type... It’s simply pressure. And at this point all your way round that is to encourage him every time he plays a really positive shot, the coach would say “oh that was excellent, that was really good” irrespective of whether he wins the point or not.

4. Conclusion As Stern (1983) observes, language teaching has tended to plough its own furrow, rather ignoring developments in general educational studies and within other domain areas. But perhaps the climate is now right for a change in attitude which will enable the many insights developed by teachers of other skills over time to be considered by the language teaching profession. Hopefully the project described here will live up to its title and provide a modest beginning.

Bibliography Allwright, Joan. 1988. "Don't Correct – Reformulate!" In Academic Writing: Process and Product. ELT Document 129, edited by Pauline C. Robinson, 109-16, Oxford: Modern English Publications and the British Council.

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Alteon. 2002. Training Manual B737-300/400/500, Alteon. Brumfit, Christopher J. 1977. "Correcting Written Work." Modern English Teacher 5:22-3. —. 1979. "Communicative" Language Teaching: An Educational Perspective." In The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching, edited by Christopher J. Brumfit and Keith Johnson, 183-191. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. 1984. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bygate, Martin. 1994. "Adjusting the Focus: Teacher Roles in Task-Based Learning of Grammar." In Grammar and the Language Teacher, edited by Marrtin Bygate, Alan Tonkyn and Eddie Williams, 237-59. London: Prentice-Hall. Cohen, Andrew. 1983. "Reformulating Compositions." TESOL Newsletter 17:1-5. Corder, S. Pit. 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, Rod. 1985. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glaser, Barney and Anselm Strauss. 1967. Discovery of Grounded Theory. Chicago: Aldine. Halliday, M. A. K. 1970. "Language Structure and Language Function." In New Horizons in Linguistics, edited by John Lyons, 140-65. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hirsch, Eric Donald. 1987. Cultural Literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Johnson, Keith. 1980. "The "Deep End" Strategy in Communicative Language Teaching." In Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology, edited by Keith Johnson, 192-200. Oxford: Pergamon Institute of English. Johnson, Keith. 1988. "Mistake Correction." English Language Teaching Journal 42:89-96. Johnson, Keith. 1996. Language Teaching and Skill Learning. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Johnson, Keith and Sara Jackson. 2006. "Comparing Language Teaching and Other-Skill Teaching: Has the Language Teacher Anything to Learn?" System 34:532-46. Levenston, Edward A. 1978. "Error Analysis of Free Composition: The Theory and the Practice." Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics 4:1-11.

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MacIntyre, Peter D. and Robert C. Gardner. 1991. "Language Anxiety: Its Relation to Other Anxieties and to Processing in Native and Second Languages." Language Learning 41:513-34. O'Malley, Michael J. and Ann Uhl Chamot. 1990. Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skehan, Peter. 1994. "Interlanguage Development and Task-Based Learning." In Grammar and the Language Teacher, edited by Martin Bygate, Alan Tonkyn and Eddie Williams, 175-99. London: PrenticeHall. Stern, Hans Heinrich. 1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strauss, Anselm. 1987. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, Anselm and Juliet Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Willis, Jane. 1996. A Framework for Task-Based Learning. London: Longman. Wright, Tony. 2005. Classroom Management in Language Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Notes 1

The award was made in 2004. The AHRC provided the support which made this research possible, and this is gratefully acknowledged. Sarah Jackson, who worked as Research Associate on the project, paid a central role in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, and this is also gratefully acknowledged. A fuller account of the research described in this chapter can be found in Johnson and Jackson (2006). 2 Hirsch (1987) provides an overview of the content/skill conflict over several decades.

SECTION TWO SPOKEN INTERACTION

CHAPTER FIVE STUDYING THE SPOKEN COMPETENCE OF 15-YEAR-OLDS MELANIE ELLIS

Abstract This chapter presents a national study conducted in Poland on a subsample of Year 9 learners who took part in the European Survey of Language Competences (ESLC) in 2011. It was decided to take the opportunity of the ESLC and also obtain information on the level of spoken competence in English (not included in ESLC) of part (499) of the national group. In this way the study aimed to complement ESLC and so allow for an empirically based description of all the skills. The study also aimed to examine the level of spoken competence with relation to curriculum attainment targets. The target level for learners in Year 9, according to the National Core Curriculum for that cohort, was A2 but it was found that 41% of learners was placed at A1 on the speaking test and that learners in rural areas fared worse than those from other locations. As some difficulties were experienced with determining whether learners were A1 or A2, 28 speech samples from learners who completed the same level A picture description task were analyzed with the aim of using empirical evidence to amend the rating scales used in order to improve their reliability. It was found that even at very low levels learners appear to be able to produce simple descriptions, which may call into question descriptors for A1 Overall Oral Production in the Common European Framework.

1. Introduction This chapter describes a national study conducted in Poland on a subsample of Year 9 learners, aged 15-16, who took part in the European

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Survey of Language Competences (ESLC) in 2011. As ESLC had no oral component it was decided to take the opportunity and also test the spoken competence in English of part (499) of the national group. The study aimed to obtain an empirically based description of the level of spoken competence of learners at the end of stage three of school education (lower secondary) and to compare this against curriculum attainment targets. A second aim was to investigate claims that learners in rural areas have lower standards of attainment in English. Assessment questionnaire tasks, based on descriptors from the Common European Framework (2001), were given to learners and also to their teachers, asking them to rate their levels of spoken competence in production and interaction. These ratings were then compared against the test results with the aim of obtaining information as to the accuracy of learner and teacher assessment of speaking. A further analysis of speech samples obtained from recordings of the tests was conducted with the aim of trying to find reasons why some raters experienced difficulty differentiating between levels A1 and A2 when assessing learners. It was hoped that empirical data could be used to make descriptions in the scales more precise and so improve their reliability.

2. Defining spoken competence Spoken competence is a challenging concept to define and yet if we want to test it we must define the construct which we are planning to test. With reference to models of communicative competence (Canale and Swain 1980; Canale 1983; Bachman 1990) speaking can be seen as involving multiple traits from grammatical, lexical, discourse, phonological and socio-linguistic competences. Spoken language is commonly divided into two uses: for transaction and for interaction (Brown and Yule 1984, 11) Transactional language is mainly produced in long turns, consisting of several utterances, as the speaker attempts to convey a message to the listener. Making the meaning clear and understandable is seen as foremost, which forces the speaker to take care in the formulation of what they say. By contrast, interactional language is characterized by exchanges of one or two utterances in length, which are known as short turns. (ibid.) The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001, CEFR) follows this division by including separate descriptive scales for spoken production and interaction. For the construct of our test the term spoken production is used to refer to longer turns made in response to a question during an exchange where

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there is a call for a longer answer, as well as in response to other prompts, such as an instruction to describe a picture. Spoken interaction in this test takes place between two people and consists of answering questions on a variety of topics in an interview, giving opinions in response to questions and giving and requesting information in service encounters. (see Ellis and Chandler, forthcoming, for a fuller description)

2.1. Testing spoken competence Testing speaking is a challenging task as, apart from all the issues which the test writer faces when attempting to create well-formed and reliable tasks for other skills, additional factors come into play, as speaking is a performance skill and may be strongly affected by anxiety, stress and other emotions which should be accounted for in the test design and administration. Decisions have to made about the test format, the domains and situations to be included, the choice and order of tasks, rubric, elicitation procedures and rating, all of which has to be matched to the context of the target test population. Although current trends are towards computer-based tests of speaking this was rejected on grounds of logistics and validity. School computer labs vary widely in terms of size, accessibility, hardware, software and internet access. Oral testing in Poland is still traditional, face-to-face, and in the school-leaving examination follows an examiner-candidate format. It was decided to follow this format in the speaking test for 15 year olds. Specifications for the test in question, describing ‘what the test tests and how it tests it” (Alderson et al. 1995, 9) were drawn up using the template produced by ALTE members “CEFR [Common European Framework of Reference] grid for Speaking (input)” (CoE 2005).

3. The test context The Polish national core curriculum for stage 3 of compulsory education (years 7-9, learners aged 13-15) which was current for the target test population at the time of the administration of the test (MEN 2007) set the standard of attainment for the end of the stage with reference to “Waystage” (Van Ek and Trim 1991) which is now recognized as A2 on the CEFR scales, although this was not overtly stated. The revised core curriculum (2008), by contrast, clearly states that the target level of attainment for the end of stage 3 is A2+ (MEN 2009, 69). The national examination in foreign language for Year 12 is available for general

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classes at 2 levels of approximately B1 and B2 CEFR (ibid.) As it was known that some learners had started English earlier than Year 4 (the starting age at the time of the test) and that a proportion of learners also attended additional classes outside school, the test was designed to elicit language at levels from A1 to B2, assuming that part of the population might fall below set curriculum attainment targets and others achieve above them. In 2011 the First European Survey on Language Competences was administered in Poland using a representative sample for English in 81 lower secondary schools, selected according to ESLC specifications. From this a smaller sub-sample of 37 schools, stratified for location of the school, was selected. Learners who took part in the test were in the final class, aged 15-16. Polish law requires that written permission for learners to take part in a research project be obtained from parents or guardians. This resulted in a high refusal rate from schools initially selected and the resulting sample is unevenly distributed, with 9% from places with population of less than 5000; 29.1% between 5,000 and up to 20,000; 26.3% from 20,000 to 100,000 and 35.7% above 100,000. The number of learners in each school also varies considerably, from 5 to 20, with 60.72% (n=303) girls and 39.28% (n=196) boys. Although the sample includes a good spread of schools from across the country and from different socio-economic regions, it is not statistically representative. The test of spoken competence took place in spring 2011, within three weeks of the ESLC tests, with the same learners, as one of the aims was to be able to compare results on the test of speaking with results from the other tests. In order to allow such comparison CEFR (2001) was taken as the main reference document for task and rating scale construction and raters were first trained and standardized using Council of Europe (2008) approved benchmark performances. The CEFR contains both global scales, where speaking is divided into Spoken Interaction and Spoken Production, for self-assessment (2001, 2627) and overall production (2001, 58,74) and more specific scales for “qualitative aspects of spoken language use” (2001, 28-29), besides other scales for speaking describing specific situations and a scale for spoken fluency (2001, 129). Separate scales exist for linguistic range, vocabulary range and control, grammatical accuracy and phonological control (2001, 110-117) and for pragmatic competences (2001, 124-125).

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4. Method Two main principles guided the design of test tasks: validity and reliability. We set out to create tasks that would be acceptable to the test takers in that they were familiar in format and topic, compatible with the core curriculum and presented situations in which the learners might find themselves. Choice of topics took into consideration that these test takers were teenagers, at an age when they may not be willing to communicate much, even in their own language, and with as yet limited knowledge of the world. Most problematic was deciding on the format for the interactive tasks. At level A the task was an information gap, using a grid containing information with missing points marked with question marks, where learners were required both to ask for and to give information. At level B this took the form of a role play. For longer turns picture description and answering questions were selected as being most familiar to learners. Interlocutor scripts were written prepared to ensure that short responses were followed up with the question “Why?” to elicit enough language for rating purposes and also to increase reliability of test administration. Tasks were designed to elicit language at two levels A and B as initial small-scale trials with single tasks found that simple pictures and information gap tasks failed to elicit adequate samples of language to give evidence of competence at B levels. This was found to be much more evident if the task “pushed’ the learner by being more demanding. Pictures chosen for level A presented very familiar everyday situations, (A2 “can give a simple description …of people, living conditions or working conditions, daily routines…”, CEFR 2001, 58) while B level tasks presented situations which were less clear, or less familiar, where the description could involve some speculation or a wider vocabulary range. The interactive task at level A took the form of questions and answers in a situation (A2 “can ask for and provide everyday goods and services”, CEFR 2001, 80), while the level B task involved the learner having to deal with unpredictability and negotiation (B1 “has a sufficient range of language to describe unpredictable situations, explain the main points in an idea or problem with reasonable precision…”, CEFR 2001, 110).

4.1. Test procedure design An innovative feature of this test is the “router” task which used sets of questions from seven topic areas to probe the learner’s language range for 3-4 minutes. Before the test learners completed a short self-assessment

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task in which they were asked to select from four descriptors responses to two questions on interaction, one on production and one on willingness to speak. The interlocutor then began the router task at one level below that which the learner had assigned themselves, in order to increase their confidence by starting with an easy question, and then continued in the same topic set, asking increasingly more demanding questions until the learner’s responses displayed noticeable signs of breakdown. The procedure was repeated until the interlocutor could decide whether the learner’s ceiling was A2 or lower, or B1 or higher. The router was followed by the picture task and two questions and then by the interactive task, with the whole lasting between 9 and 12 minutes.

4.2. Rating the test In the main study a global rating was given by the interlocutor and then the recordings were rated on an analytic scale. As during the piloting phase difficulty had been experienced with agreeing the level of some borderline performances, it was decided to require a consensus of three ratings. To avoid bias caused by any single rater recordings were mixed so tests from each school were divided up between different raters. Three descriptive scales were constructed, closely based on the CEFR scales referred to above, with reference also made to the Polish edition of the European Language Portfolio for 10-15 year olds (CODN 2004): one for helping the interlocutor decide whether to use tasks at CEFR level A or B; a second to assign a global score and a third analytic scale for rating recordings of the tests. The scales were discussed with three different teachers, trialled during the pilot phase by four different raters and amended during a feedback meeting. The material produced by Centre International d’Études Pedagogiques (Council of Europe 2008) was chosen for initial rating training and standardization, as the learners depicted most closely matched the target population. This material, together with familiarization exercises on CEFR levels, were used to train an additional two assessors for the pilot in a 6 hour training day. During the pilot films were made of 22 learners of different levels of ability which were discussed and assigned levels using the rating scales. Raters in the main study, who were 27 experienced teachers of English, took part in an 18 hour training and standardization course using the local films. During the live test two decisions were made as to level: first during the router task where it was decided whether to give subsequent tasks at level A or B and then at the end of the test using the global scale. When

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listening to the recordings the rater had a copy of the analytic scale for each test taker and on this ticked the parts of the scale they felt were evidenced in the performance, at each instance. During the training course raters were monitored to ensure they were using all the subscales (Range and Coherence; Accuracy; Fluency; Interaction; and Task Completion) and not making decisions based on one part of the scale alone. The density and location of ticks helped in the decision making process. All tests were rated three times and scores entered into a spreadsheet. Where there was a consensus of three this was set as the final score. If a consensus was not obtained further ratings were made by other members of the rating team until a consensus was reached.

5. Results This section describes results from the speaking tests and from selfassessment tasks completed by the learners.

5.1. Speaking tests Test takers were given a global score during the live test and then a final analytic score, the consensus of three ratings, all of which were expressed as A1, A2, B1 or B2. During the tests unexpectedly (as these young people had been learning English for at least seven years) a small number of learners were found to have minimal abilities in speaking. As the descriptors did not allow for a clear decision to be made about the bottom limit of A1, these were awarded A1. 5.1.1. Global scores More than seventy percent of the sample (n=498) were rated Level A with approximately 27% at Level B. 43.7% scored under the curriculum target and were rated A1.

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Figure 5–1. Distribution of global scores (n=498)

5.1.2. Analytic scores The spread of analytic scores was similar, with fewer rated at B2 (33 as opposed to 43) and a slight increase in the number rated A2 from A1. Some 27% of the tests had required 4 or 5 ratings for a consensus of 3 to be reached, with the problems most often associated with the upper and lower limits of A2. This could have been caused by a number of factors. Raters were expected to give one score across three tasks and learners’ performance profiles were uneven, with some discrepancy between performance on the various tasks. The router questions were answered spontaneously, while the remaining tasks had a short (30 second) preparation time, which may have accounted for some of the variance. Some learners were stronger in the interactive than the productive task, or the reverse. The accuracy sub-scale appeared to be problematic, as some performances rated at level B, clearly matching the descriptors on the other sub-scales, showed a large number of mistakes and were rated lower by some raters for this, while other raters, following the location and density of ticks instruction, rated them higher. There may also have been problems caused by the benchmark films, which may not have demonstrated the wide stretch of abilities possible within each level. No subdivisions, such as A2/A2+ were made, which may have led to confusion.

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Figure 5–2. Distribution of analytic final scores (n=498)

Global and final scores showed a strong significant correlation (Spearman’s rho =0.76, n=498, pThis picture shows boy and dog. A> Uh-huh, ok. Something else? B> (.) Dog is white. A> Yes,that`s true. B> Erm boy is erm T-shirt erm blue A> Uh-huh B> (.) and (..) glasses. A> Uh-huh, ok ermm, thank you Extract 2 demonstrates that the same effect can be achieved nonverbally. The learner takes up the challenge indicated by the examiner’s signal to continue and begins again, repeating themselves to get started, or perhaps to give themselves time to formulate the next utterance. The examiner’s apparent approval, despite the use of foreignization (the Polish word for glasses with an English plural marker added) encourages the learner to produce one further contribution. Extract 2 B>Hmm (.) the picture is gray but the dog and the boy in the picture is ere gold. A> Uh-huh. B> Boy in the picture (.) hug the dog and he has blue shirt and okulars. A> Uh-huh. Uh-huh. B> The dog is white. (..) This has implications for the design of the test rubric and for interlocutor training, but also potentially for reliability, as it depends on whether all examiners use the same degree of encouragement, at which points in the learner’s response and how.

6.3. Discussion This small exploratory study appears to suggest that further analysis of the characteristics of learner speech at the A levels of CEFR could usefully inform more finely tuned descriptors in the spoken production scale, as it

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has been shown that learners are capable of doing a simple spoken production task. This chapter has dealt with a preliminary analysis of one task and it would be necessary to compare these findings with speech samples from the interview task and the post-picture questions. Similarly, to decide whether the listing function described above is a characteristic of A1 speech, or only a response to this particular task, samples from other tasks need to be analyzed. Comparison of speech from the interactive task and the production tasks may also reveal more about how spoken language develops at these early stages with learners in an instructed setting, with limited access to the language outside the classroom. The analysis was also a contributing factor in enabling the production of a pre-A1 level for a revised global rating scale. It was felt that defining the bottom limit of A1 would reduce the possibility that raters were overrating some A1 learners because of subconscious comparison with minimal performances of those who were in fact not yet at the A1 level.

7. Conclusions Implications can be drawn for the Polish context for both teachers and learners. In order to develop spoken competence learners have to be given opportunities to speak, in a variety of situations including longer turns. Although preparation time is needed for elementary learners before they speak, tasks should not be restricted to reading aloud prepared answers which have been written, nor to reciting from memory. Learners also need to be ‘pushed’ to start speaking spontaneously, as it is in this way that they will develop strategies to keep the speech going. In this sample learners showed a tendency to abandon the message (12 instances), or occasionally to switch into Polish to appeal (4 instances), suggesting that the focus of classroom tasks may be accuracy, rather than the ability to communicate a message. Both are needed if learners’ speaking is to develop, especially as we have to assume they may not have many opportunities to speak English regularly outside class. The fact that 43.7% of the sample was rated A1 shows there is a clear need to raise levels of spoken competence in order to enable all learners to reach curriculum attainment targets. The relatively small number of holophrases (lexicalized chunks) found in the speech sample suggests one possible way how speaking could be developed . A possible reason for few such phrases in the sample may be that learners are not being exposed to sufficiently large enough amounts of spoken English to allow them to acquire such phrases, which may indicate a reliance on the use of L1 in the classroom. Another possibility may be that learners have insufficient

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speaking practice and so have not yet developed the lexical resources, such as holophrases, which could make speaking easier, as there has been no need to do so. A conscious focus on lexicalized phrases in teaching and opportunity for practice would seem to be one possible way forward. We have seen evidence that if the interlocutor is patient and empathetic learners are able to produce longer responses. Examples such as those given above could be used in teacher education to demonstrate ways of interacting with low level learners. Speech samples obtained from learners at different levels could be used to show how spoken competence develops and compared against the descriptors given in CEFR to increase teacher understanding. In order to encourage more frequent classroom assessment of speaking and to offer a variety of ready-to-use tasks it is planned to offer the tests from this study for use by teachers.

Acknowledgement This research was funded from the system project: Quality and effectiveness of education - strengthening of institutional research capabilities which is financed by the European Social Fund within the Priority III framework of the “Operational Programme Human Capital” – “Quality of the education system” and 3.1.1. “Creating tools and the environment for monitoring, evaluation and research in the education system.”

Bibliography Alderson, J. Charles, Caroline Clapham and Diane Wall. 1995. Language Test Construction and Evaluation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bachman, Lyle. 1990. Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, Gillian and George Yule. 1984. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Canale, Michael and Merrill Swain. 1980. “Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing”. Applied Linguistics 1:1-47 Canale, Michael. 1983. “On Some Dimensions of Language Proficiency”. In Issues in Language Testing Research, edited by John W. Oller, 33342. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Council of Europe. 2001. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Council of Europe Language Policy Division. “The CEFR grid for Speaking, developed by ALTE members (input).” Accessed on November 24, 2012. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/ALTE%20CEFR%20Speaki ng%20Grid%20INput51.pdf Council of Europe. 2008. Spoken performances illustrating the 6 levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. DVD. Centre International d’Études Pedagogiques. Accessed July 23, 2012, http://www.ciep.fr/en/publi_evalcert/dvd-productions-orales-cecrl/videos/ english.php. Ellis, Melanie and Dominika Chandler. Forthcoming. Badanie umiejĊtnoĞci mówienia w jĊzyku angielskim wĞród uczniów klasy trzeciej szkoáy gimnazjalnej (CzĊĞü I). Warszawa: Instytut BadaĔ Edukacyjnych. Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej. Rozporządzenia Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 23 sierpnia 2007 zmieniające rozporządzenie w sprawie podstawy programowej wychowania przedszkolnego oraz ksztaácenia ogólnego w poszczególnych typach szkóá. Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej. 2009. Podstawa Programowa z Komentarzami, Tom 3. JĊzyki obce w szkole podstawowej, gimnazjum i liceum. Warszawa. Trim, John. No date. Breakthrough. Accessed November 27, 2012, http://www.englishprofile.org/ under T series books. van Ek, Jan and John Trim. 1991. Waystage 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Appendix Masz 30 sekund na przygotowanie siĊ do tego zadania. [You have 30 seconds preparation time] Zapoznaj siĊ z przedstawionym zdjĊciem. [Familiarize yourself with the picture below] 1. Opisz zdjĊcie. [Describe the picture] 2. NastĊpnie odpowiedz na dwa pytania, które zada Ci egzaminator. [Next answer two questions which the examiner will ask you]

Photo 1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tearsandrain/2818255774/

CHAPTER SIX THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS IN CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL) KATARZYNA PAPAJA

Abstract The forces of global change, technological and economical development present challenges for education. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an innovative approach which refers to educational settings where a language other than the learners’ mother tongue is used as the medium of instruction. CLIL is an approach which enables learners to gain access to subject-specific language terminology and prepares them for future studies or working life. This chapter provides an outline of the research on changes in the development of speaking and listening skills in a CLIL classroom. Starting with a brief insight into the phenomenon of CLIL-based instruction, and a general overview of the qualitative studies based on observations, the chapter focuses particularly on the practical routes towards successful development of speaking and listening skills.

1. Introduction Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language (Coyle, Hood and Marsh 2010, 1). It is a dualfocused educational approach which means that in the teaching and learning process attention should be given to content and language. It should be emphasized that CLIL is not a completely new approach. It is

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closely related to bilingual education and immersion but it differs from these approaches in a way that it is more content-driven. In the following article, I am going to discuss the development of speaking and listening skills in CLIL. Firstly, I am going to discuss the role of speaking and listening in CLIL from a theoretical point of view. Secondly, I am going to present a brief description of the study together with the research questions, methods and instruments of data collection. Then I am going to present the data and discuss the results of the study. The empirical study, which is a part of a PhD research project, is based on observations and questionnaires. It was conducted for the period of one school year in 1st Secondary School in Cracow where subjects such as geography, biology and mathematics are offered in English. Finally, I am going to draw some conclusions and provide suggestions concerning further improvement of the above mentioned skills.

2. Speaking skills in CLIL The results of the research carried out on immersion in Canada reveal that even though the receptive skills of the learners were highly advanced, the productive skills were far from satisfactory (Swain and Lapkin 1982; Genesee, 1987; Swain 1985; Harley 1996). Swain (1985) argues that these results were due to the lower number of productive activities. According to Swain (1985, 235), “foreign language learning depends on comprehensible output”. Learners need to be provided with an opportunity to use their language. In other words, while using a foreign language, the learner is able to notice his /her “language gaps” and what is more, he/she becomes more motivated to work on these “language gaps”. It has been suggested that spoken language skills do not develop as well as receptive skills in CLIL. Marsh and Marsland (1999, 79) suggest that “it may be linked to the types of teaching methods or lack of experience of teachers who are not familiar with CLIL”. If teaching is teacher-centred and unfortunately, this is the case in many schools where CLIL has been introduced and the learners do not have many opportunities to actively use the target language, then the productive skills fail to develop (Eurydice 2006). What is evident is the question of self-confidence in trying to speak the target language. The development of self-confidence is often cited in terms of being increasingly able to speak without planning and formulating sentences or utterances in advance; in other words, “the learners believe that they become more able to use the target language spontaneously” (Marsh and Marsland 1999, 79).

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In the CLIL classroom as well as in the regular English language classroom, learners improve their speech when teachers provide insights on how to organize their ideas for presentation (Wallace 1991). The CLIL learners can give better speeches and what is more, they can organize their presentation in a variety of different ways e.g. sequentially, chronologically or thematically. They need practice in organizing their speech around problems and solutions, causes and results, and similarities and differences. The CLIL classroom provides them with great opportunities to do it. The CLIL learners deal with different contexts which can be easily discussed by them if they are only given a chance. After deciding the best means of organization, they can practise interacting with another learner or with the whole class. Walberg (1998) writes that teachers can also help the CLIL learners adapt their speeches and informal talks so as to correspond to the intended audience, the information to be communicated, and the circumstances of the occasion at which they will speak. What is more, “the teachers can illustrate how wellknown speakers have adapted their presentations in ways to suit these different circumstances” (Walberg 1998, 173). Teachers can enable the CLIL learners to present ideas to individual peers, peer groups and the entire class. Preparing for debates and participating in them helps the CLIL learners to see both sides of various issues. Gassner and Maillat (2006, 15-22) claim that “both teachers and the CLIL learners can provide suggestions for learners’ speeches”. In constructively criticizing others, the CLIL learners can learn to apply criteria for good speech and employ tactful social skills. In doing so, they can increase and improve their own speaking skills.

3. Listening skills in CLIL It is often stated in textbooks on the methodology of teaching English as a foreign language that listening is an important form of communication. “Listening comprehension is an integral part of verbal communication, it is influenced by the situational context, the relationship between the interlocutors, the sender and the addressee, and their mutual perceptions of each other as well as their goals in the communicative event” (Dakowska 2005, 217). The development of listening skills is often cited as an outcome of CLIL. The CLIL learner is exposed to the language more than the regular English language learner. As a result, he/she picks up much lexical materials which he/she is able to comprehend and take advantage of while formulating opinions, criticizing or responding.

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As has already been mentioned, in the CLIL classroom “language and content should be integrated which also means that certain language skills should be practiced” (Marsh and Marsland 1999, 79). Nothing particular has been written about the way listening skills should be developed in a CLIL classroom. There is the general view among CLIL teachers that “since CLIL learners are constantly exposed to a foreign language, no particular attention is paid to the development of listening comprehension skills” (Marsh et al 2008, 29). In a CLIL classroom, as in any language classroom, the text should be authentic or close to informal discourse. It should be taken into account that the CLIL learners are also language learners whose aim is not only to be able to speak about particular geographical or biological concepts but also to use their language in everyday life, and that is why the authenticity of teaching materials is so crucial. Secondly, visual information can be very helpful. CLIL learners have to process difficult concepts in a foreign language and if some of the concepts are presented visually it can help CLIL learners to memorize them faster. Thirdly, CLIL learners should be asked to comprehend as much as possible from a single hearing and also be asked to respond immediately to the message. The reason is that in future life CLIL learners may find themselves in a situation when a message will not be repeated and they will be required to provide an answer as soon as possible either at the University or in their professional life. Finally, the tasks should be meaningful and a purpose for listening comprehension should be provided. CLIL learners as well as the ordinary language learners need to deal with tasks which they can associate with their own life and also see the purpose of these tasks in order to be more motivated e.g. CLIL learners may be encouraged to listen to an interview outside the classroom (broadcast on BBC) with a purpose of analysing this interview during the CLIL lesson and preparing a summary of the main points in groups. The CLIL learners may be informed about the possibility of receiving additional marks.

4. The study 4.1. Aims of the study The present study aims to discuss the changes in the development of speaking and listening skills in a CLIL classroom in secondary education throughout one school year. It is believed that both speaking skills and listening skills suffer the most in a ‘CLIL environment’ due to the fact that the emphasis is put on the development of content-specific vocabulary,

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which can be easily learnt through reading. Unlike regular English courses, CLIL provides additional learning challenges resulting from the fact that language is not the sole concern, but rather it is a tool whereby CLIL students study the content of specific subjects. The presence of a huge amount of content-specific vocabulary may hinder communication and the development of speaking and listening skills. Therefore, the following research questions have been posed: x What changes concerning the development of speaking skills can be observed in a CLIL classroom throughout one school year? x What changes concerning the development of listening skills can be observed in a CLIL classroom throughout one school year?

4.2. Participants The study was conducted in the 1st Secondary School in Cracow, Poland. A total of 36 learners at the age of 16-17 years old participated in the study (one bilingual class). There were 21 females and 15 males in the class. Additionally, 3 teachers were observed. The geography teacher was fully qualified both in English and geography while the maths and biology teachers were fully qualified in the content of the subject and had a language certificate in English (CAE). The learners had two hours of geography, two hours of biology and three hours of mathematics per week. Additionally, they had six hours of English per week. The bilingual syllabus is based on the National Polish curriculum for secondary schools and covers the same topics as the monolingual one.

4.3. Research instruments and procedure The main research instrument used in the present research study was observation. A special observation sheet was prepared. It was divided into the following parts: the stages of the lesson (e.g. revision, brainstorming, etc.), the type of activity (e.g. role play, listening for gist, etc.) time (how much time the teacher spends on particular activity), the type of interaction (teacher-learners, learners-teacher or learners-learners), materials used (e.g. whiteboard, copies, etc…) and additional information (e.g. error correction etc…). Each observation sheet had additional information such as subject, the number of learners present, the teacher and the date. The learners were observed for a period of one school year (6 hrs per week) and notes concerning the development of all skills/sub-skills were taken. However, for the purpose of this analysis, only speaking and listening skills are to be discussed.

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4.4. Results In order to discuss the changes in the development of speaking and listening skills, the data collected from observations are to be divided into three periods of time: the beginning of the school year, the middle of the school year and the end of the school year. The data collected from the questionnaire is to be presented separately. The data presented and analysed below are very general and do not cover the whole range of data collected throughout the whole school year. 4.4.1. Speaking skills The beginning of the school year: At the very beginning of the research, few CLIL learners tended to use sustained monologue concerning the ability to describe one’s experience. This type of monologue was mainly observed during geography lessons. Few CLIL learners fluently provided a straightforward description of the sources of geographical information that they were acquainted with, e.g. “When I want to get some information I use the Internet which I think is the most common source of information, well not only the geographical one”, “I think that we can simply use maps. Our teacher from the primary school kept repeating that we can read everything from a map”. In the case of biology or mathematics, the CLIL learners did not use any monologues. When being asked a question, they gave very short answers, e.g. (biology) T: “How are we built?” L: “Out of water” T: “Anything else?” L: “Carbohydrates?” T: “Right, and?” etc… (mathematics) T: “What are the laws for logical sentences?” L: “Comutativeness” T: “OK, what else?’ L: “Conjuctiveness” T: “There are more of them; could you give us all of them?” It was observed that the CLIL learners did not have many possibilities to take part in a discussion or to address the class directly. In fact, there

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were hardly any tasks used which required those kinds of abilities. On the other hand, the CLIL learners did not seem to be willing to take part in a discussion or to address the class directly – most of them seemed to be scared of speaking. Their fear of speaking was probably due to the fact that they found themselves in a completely new situation – new school, new teachers, new class and what is more, subjects to be learned in a foreign language (most of the learners had not been learning content subjects in a foreign language before). However, it should be mentioned that those CLIL learners who had enough courage to speak in a foreign language had a very good command of English producing clear and smoothly flowing, well-structured speech. The middle of the school year: In the middle of the school year, it was noticed that the CLIL learners were more willing to speak English and what is more, they could produce stretches of language with a fairly even tempo. From time to time, they were hesitant when they had to use a new word or expression but it did not have any influence on the flow of speech. They were also willing to take part in discussions and express their opinions, especially during geography lessons. The following conversation illustrates their willingness to discuss difficult matters: L1: “Do you think that a meteor shower could have [any] influence on the existence of dinosaurs?” L2: “In my opinion, there must have been something bigger which destroyed them.” T: “Well, if I can take part in the discussion, there is a theory which says that it was a meteor shower or even more meteor showers.” L3: “Can we predict a meteor shower, Mrs Professor [sic]?” T: “Nowadays, of course we can but in the past people did not know what it was.” etc… During the CLIL biology lessons some CLIL learners were asked to come to the board and were questioned about previous lessons. Most of the CLIL learners had no problems with answering the questions fluently. Most of the speaking activities which the biology teacher used were connected with describing particular organs or processes that take place. There was a group of learners who had no problems with this kind of activity but there were still some learners who were silent and would not say anything which could have been due to the difficulty of the subject itself.

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In the case of mathematics, the situation changed considerably when comparing the lessons from the beginning of the school year to the lessons in the middle of the year. CLIL learners questioned at the blackboard about solving some mathematical formulas tried to provide answers in English which meant that some of them stopped being afraid of talking about mathematics in English. However, most of the speaking activities were based on asking and answering questions (teacher-learner interaction). The end of the school year: Taking into consideration all the lessons observed at the end of the school year, CLIL learners had the opportunity to develop and practise their speaking skills during all CLIL lessons. During the CLIL geography lesson, the learners practised the language of speculation and prediction. The CLIL learners were often asked to watch some DVD presentations and before each major scene, the CLIL geography teacher stopped the DVD and provided some questions which the learners were asked to answer in pairs. Most of the questions were speculating questions such as: “Why do you think there is so much salt in the Black Sea?”; “How can we protect Antarctica from melting, in your opinion?” etc… Most of the CLIL learners while discussing the questions in pairs used expressions such as: “Well, it’s hard to say, but…”; “I’m sure that it’s going to…”; “In my opinion…”; “It is definitely…” etc… Apart from that, CLIL learners were also asked to report on what they had seen. While reporting, the learners were using various linking devices such as: “firstly…”; “secondly…”; “afterwards…”; “next …”; “finally…” etc… During the CLIL biology lessons, CLIL learners had an opportunity to speak English as well. The CLIL biology teacher tended to ask open-ended questions during each lesson. The learners were also given some pictures e.g. a picture of a heart and they were asked to name different parts of the organ presented in the picture. What is more, the CLIL biology teacher tended to focus on brainstorming. In most cases, the learners worked in a group of 5 or 6 and were asked to think of some e.g. disorders connected with the circulatory system. In the case of mathematics, the CLIL learners had an opportunity to practise their speaking skills when called to the board and asked to explain certain mathematical formulas. Surprisingly, quite a lot of the CLIL learners were willing to answer the questions asked by the teacher, which may mean that they had broken the language barrier, which had been present at the beginning of the school year.

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4.4.2. Listening skills The beginning of the school year: During the lessons observed at the beginning of the school year, it was noticed that CLIL learners were mainly exposed to teacher talk during the lessons. The only lessons when the CLIL learners were exposed to audio media were the geography lessons. The CLIL learners were watching some documentaries and additionally, they were asked to do some tasks in which their understanding was checked. The geography CLIL teacher provided the CLIL learners with some comprehension questions which they were supposed to answer on the basis of the documentary, e.g. “How do we collect weather information?”, “What do we use a cartogram for?”, “What kind of thematic maps do we have?” etc... On the basis of CLIL learners’ language output, it can be said that they could understand the main ideas which were delivered in a standard dialect (e.g. British English) including the geographical field. However, most of the CLIL learners asked the CLIL teacher to play the DVD once again in order to be able to find answers to the questions. In the case of biology and mathematics, the CLIL learners seemed to have some problems with understanding instructions and could only catch the main points. It was probably due to the fact that the CLIL learners still had problem with understanding the specialised vocabulary. The middle of the school year: In the middle of the school year, no particular changes were observed. The CLIL learners were continuously exposed to English during the lessons mentioned before. Like in the previous months, the learners were engaged in the process of comprehension accompanied by a wide variety of contexts. During the CLIL geography lessons, they were exposed to teacher talk as well as to other learners’ talk while working in pairs and groups. A similar situation took place during the CLIL biology lessons when they were exposed both to teacher talk and learner talk. During the lesson of mathematics the CLIL learners were also exposed to teacher talk to much greater extent than they were in the previous months. It can be said that on the basis of CLIL learners’ language output, CLIL learners could understand extended speech on both concrete and abstract topics delivered in a standard dialect provided the topic was reasonably familiar. CLIL learners still tended to ask some questions, especially after the lectures or after having been given some instructions but the requests for repetition did not occur as often as they used to at the beginning of the

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school year. Unfortunately, no particular listening exercises apart from open-ended questions were used during the CLIL lessons observed. The end of the school year: At the end of the school year, CLIL learners were more often exposed to authentic visual materials, especially during CLIL geography lessons. CLIL learners watched a film on glaciers which had been originally recorded by the CLIL geography teacher in the USA. During the CLIL geography lesson mentioned above, the CLIL geography teacher did not give any speech but provided the learners with a set of comprehension questions which were based on the material presented in the film. In the case of the CLIL biology lessons, CLIL learners were very often exposed to the teacher’s lectures in English. What is more, they had to make some notes, which required good comprehension skills. Apart from that, the CLIL learners were called to the board and evaluated by the CLIL biology teacher. Additionally, CLIL learners were given some tasks which they were asked to do in pairs or in groups. As in the previous months, during the lesson of mathematics the CLIL learners were not exposed as much to English as in the case of other CLIL lessons – both the CLIL mathematics teacher and the CLIL learners often switched into Polish. However, the CLIL learners seemed to have fewer problems when understanding mathematics in English. Unfortunately, no particular listening comprehension exercises apart from open-ended questions were used during mathematics. All in all, taking into consideration the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) it can be said that at this stage of the bilingual education, CLIL learners could understand standard spoken language, live or broadcast, on both familiar and unfamiliar topics normally encountered in personal, social, academic or vocational life. Only extreme background noise, inadequate discourse structure and/or idiomatic usage or lack of knowledge concerning a particular subject could influence the ability to understand. What is more, at this stage, CLIL learners could with some effort catch much of what was said around them, but could find it a bit difficult to participate effectively in discussion with several native speakers who did not modify their language in any way. Additionally, they could follow extended speech and complex lines of argument provided the topic was reasonably familiar. They could also follow the essentials of lectures, talks and reports and other forms of academic/professional presentation which were propositionally and linguistically complex. It is also important to mention that CLIL learners could understand recordings in standard dialect likely to be encountered in

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social, professional or academic life and identify speaker viewpoints and attitudes as well as the subject-specific content.

4.5. Discussion The analysis concerning the development of speaking and listening skills in a CLIL classroom can be based on the observed changes which occurred during the whole school year. The most important change which started being visible quite early on (in October) was the one connected with the language barrier. Most of the CLIL learners started “breaking” it gradually. Each month they were more willing to speak about a particular aspect concerning geography, biology or mathematics in English. What is more, gradually, CLIL learners stopped being afraid of asking questions which was probably due to the fact that they stopped feeling ashamed of lack of knowledge and were acquiring more vocabulary, which allowed them to speak freely. What is also worth mentioning is that the quality of speech was definitely changing during the whole school year. The CLIL learners were using more specialised vocabulary, linking devices as well as more sophisticated grammatical structures. What is very important to point out is the change which took place in the case of mathematics. In the 1st semester, CLIL learners were afraid of speaking about mathematical concepts in English which was probably due to the difficulty of the subject itself. However, slight changes were occurring throughout 2nd semester when the CLIL learners tried to use English during lessons of mathematics. They started using simple words and were gradually using more and more specialised vocabulary. As far as listening comprehension skills are concerned, it was very difficult to identify the changes which occurred during the school year because the CLIL learners did not take any listening comprehension tests during their CLIL classes. The only reliable data was the researcher’s own observations. CLIL learners made progress as far as listening comprehension was concerned since they were exposed to English all the time. They were either exposed to CLIL teacher talk, their peers (in certain group or pair work activities) and also to various multimedia. On the basis of these observations, it can be said that CLIL learners could understand more because they tended to ask fewer questions. At the beginning of the school year they often asked the teachers for repetition. The decreasing number of CLIL learners’ demands for repetition on the part of a CLIL teacher may suggest better understanding and therefore improvement in listening comprehension skills. There was also a significant change in CLIL learners’ responses to the CLIL teachers’ questions. At the beginning of

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the school year, most of the CLIL learners used short answers with many hesitations such as “well”, “let me think”, “just give me a minute, please”, “what shall I say” etc. while answering the CLIL teachers questions which may imply some problems with listening comprehension. Within the school year, the CLIL learners’ answers to the CLIL teachers’ questions were longer and featured fewer hesitations. The last, but not least, change which is worth mentioning as far as listening comprehension is considered is connected with mathematics. At the end of the school year, CLIL learners provided more answers in English, asked fewer questions and were more willing to be active during mathematics lessons in English which could be also a sign of better listening comprehension skills acquired throughout the whole school year. All in all, being exposed to the English language through the CLIL lessons, CLIL learners made significant progress as far as listening comprehension is concerned and the changes which occurred throughout the whole school year were very positive.

5. Concluding remarks Bearing in mind the importance of speaking and listening, CLIL learners should be provided with many opportunities to practise these skills. CLIL teachers should design the lessons in such a way that they can incorporate a range of activities such as: role-plays, discussions, presentations, cloze exercises, true/false judgements, etc., in which both language and content are integrated. CLIL is an educational approach in which various language-supportive methodologies are used and therefore, curriculum design needs to involve both language teachers and content teachers. There is an implication for the need for future research to verify the results obtained from the present study, especially that the main data was collected on the basis of observations. It is suggested that recording the lessons and analysing them step by step according to the established criteria, interviewing teachers and learners and designing special tests – both written and oral be used. Despite the possible conclusions that have been drawn from this study, it is necessary to emphasize that this study needs to be replicated with larger samples. It would also be a good idea to conduct a similar study among two groups – the CLIL group of learners and a regular group of learners for a longer period of time e.g. for 3 years.

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Bibliography Council of Europe. 2001. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coyle, Doyle, Peter P. Hood and David Marsh. 2010. Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dakowska, Maria. 2005. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Warszawa: PWN. Eurydice. 2006. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at School in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice European Unit. Gassner, Denise and Didier Maillat. 2006. “Spoken Competence in CLIL: a Pragmatic Take on Recent Swiss Data”. Vienna English Working Papers 15:15-22. Genesee, Fred. 1987. Learning through Two Languages. Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education. New York NY: Harper and Row. Harley, Bill. 1996. “Introduction: Vocabulary Learning and Teaching in a Second Language”. The Canadian Modern Language Review 53:3-11. Marsh, David and Bruce Marsland, eds. 1999. Learning with Languages. A Professional Development Programme for Introducing Content and Language Integrated Learning. Finland: University of Jyväskylä. Marsh, David., Marek Zając, Hanna Gozdawa-GoáĊbiowska, Anna Czura, Anna GapiĔska, Renata Majewska, Katarzyna Papaja, Magdalena Roda, Magdalena Urbaniak and Ewa Wróblewska. 2008. Profile Report – Bilingual. Education (English) in Poland, 13-16. Warszawa: The National Centre for Teacher Training and Development (CODN) and British Council Poland. Papaja, Katarzyna. 2010. A Qualitative Evaluation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Secondary Education. Unpublished PhD thesis. Katowice: Institute of English, University of Silesia. Swain, Michael and Sharon Lapkin. 1982. Evaluating Bilingual Education: A Canadian Case Study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Swain, Michael. 1985. “Communicative Competence: Some Roles of Comprehensible Input and Comprehensible Output in its Development”. In Input in Second Language Acquisition, edited by Susan Gass and Carolyn Madden, 235-253. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Walberg, Herbert J. 1998. “Uncompetitive American Schools: Causes and Cures”. In Brookings Papers on Education Policy, edited by Diane Ravitch, 173-206. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

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Wallace, Michael J. 1991. Training Foreign Language Teachers. A Reflective Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER SEVEN MANAGING COLLABORATIVE SPEAKING TASKS: PEDAGOGIC AND NATURALISTIC DISCOURSE IN TRAINEES’ INSTRUCTIONAL TALK EWA GUZ AND PIOTR STEINBRICH

Abstract Classroom discourse is typically viewed as a two-dimensional construct depending on its teleological orientation. On the one hand, we distinguish pedagogic discourse whose aim is to organize tasks or to explain lesson content. On the other hand, we discern naturalistic discourse that attempts to replicate real communication typical of outsideof-the-classroom contexts. Our main concern is to gauge the effectiveness of instructional talk in terms of the choice of a particular discourse type in organizing, executing and evaluating collaborative speaking tasks by trainee teachers of English as Foreign Language in Polish secondary state schools. More specifically, the aim of the chapter is to determine whether the application of a given discourse type by the teacher is in line with the goals of a particular speaking activity. The descriptive apparatus used to address the issues attended to in the analytical core of the study is based on Sinclair and Coulthard's rank-scale analysis (1975; 1992). Although we focus on all the elements of structure, we argue that the highest rank demonstrates the dominance of pedagogic discourse which, in turn, permeates all the subordinate levels of discourse structure with naturalistic discourse occurring mainly within the pedagogic domain. We also observe that pedagogic and naturalistic types of discourse typically co-occur at the transaction level. Mixing the two at lower levels of discourse structure seriously hinders the realization of the lesson objectives.

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1. Introduction Research into classroom interaction and the discourse resulting from the communication between teachers and students has a relatively long tradition. The recognition of the central role of classroom communication goes back to the 90s, when it became apparent that it is through language that teachers perform their educational duties and learners display their state of knowledge. Studies into the interactive patterns of general subject lessons (Mehan 1979; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; 1992) as well as second language lessons (Nunan 1987; 1991; Cazden 1988; Van Lier 1984; 1988; 1991; Thornbury 1996; 2002; Nassaji and Wells 2000; Christie 2002; Walsh 2006; 2011) demonstrate that classroom interaction and discourse display a number of distinct and fairly predictable characteristics. One of the major observations made about the nature of classroom exchanges concerns their spontaneous and unplanned nature. It has been pointed out that even though certain aspects of classroom interaction (such as, for example, the optimal patterns of learner participation and collaboration) can be anticipated and designed in advance, the flow of the lesson is unpredictable as it occurs in real time and cannot be subjected to prior specification (Sawyer 2004, 13). For Van Lier (1991, 47) improvisation constitutes an intrinsic element of all language teaching as “in any lesson planned and improvised actions and interactions might be tightly interwoven.” In consequence, the interaction which ensues in the classroom only partly matches the pedagogic decisions made prior to the lesson. It appears, then, that the primary function of the resulting classroom discourse is to bridge the gap between the planned and spontaneous elements of classroom goings-on. The mediatory nature of classroom communication is emphasised by many researchers. For example, Allwright and Bailey (1991) describe the interaction during L2 lessons as the plateaux on which the relationship between pedagogic plans and learning outcomes is established and manifested. They concede that it is through interaction that teachers attempt to accomplish their learning goals and implement their pedagogic plans by providing learners with opportunities to encounter and practise L2 (1991, 25). Sawyer (2006) sees teaching as improvisational performance and highlights the emergent nature of effective classroom practice. Similarly, Ellis (1994) defines classroom communication as the medium through which lessons evolve towards their pedagogic objectives. He states: Teachers plan their lessons by making selections with regard to what to teach (syllabus), how to teach (method), and perhaps also the nature of the

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social relationships they want to encourage (atmosphere). When acted on, the plans result in ‘classroom interaction’ (Ellis, 1994, 573).

Ellis explains further that the mediatory character of classroom communication is the function of its collaborative nature. As lessons emerge from the actions of both the students and the teachers, the accomplishment of learning goals takes place through the joint cooperation of all the participants of classroom discourse (Mehan, 1979). In that sense, interaction constitutes the axis of classroom-based teaching and learning: “if no interaction had occurred in the classroom, we would be unwilling to accept that a lesson had taken place at all (Allwright 1984, 59).” Regarding the collaborative nature of classroom discourse, Walsh (2006) contends that despite the fact that it is constructed through the cooperation of the students and teacher, it is the teacher who is ultimately responsible for the lesson‘s structure. In order to gain deeper insight into the discursive patterns of language lessons, the discursive practices of L2 teachers need to be investigated because patterns of classroom communication depend largely on how teachers use language to control the structure and content of classroom events (Johnson 1995, 145). The principle role of the teacher in an L2 classroom is, then, to manage classroom interaction effectively by striking a balance between the institutionally imposed obligation to realise the pre-specified learning objectives and the need to adapt to classroom reality by modifying the predesigned plan in response to the actions of the learners. Seen in such light, classroom discourse (and teacher talk in particular) constitutes one of the most effective pedagogic tools used to initiate and control L2 classroom events in real time.

2. The dual nature of classroom discourse: the pedagogic vs. naturalistic domain The role of language in the second language classroom is unique and complex. In a typical formal educational setting, be it a subject-specific classroom or the second language classroom, the discourse roles of both the teacher and students are clearly defined. In fact, it is the teacher who is almost invariably endowed with the right to initiate exchanges, whereas learners remain at the receiving end of the instruction (Nunan 1987; Cazden 1988; Ernst 1994; Nunan and Bailey 2009). Nassaji and Wells (2000, 3) explain this “unequal behaviour” of teachers and students in terms of the ownership of the knowledge necessary to create opportunities for communication. Drawing on Berry’s (1981) distinction between primary

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and secondary ‘knowers’, they argue that in the language classroom the teacher is both the initiator and the primary source of all the information necessary to successfully complete interaction. As the primary knower, the teacher has the essential information which needs to be conveyed to or elicited from learners. This information might concern both the subject matter of the task at hand as well as the language needed to perform it. Additionally, it is the teacher who has a thorough understanding of the complexities involved in organising students’ work in the course of a particular task (sequencing the activity, allocating turns, appointing speakers). The teacher’s primary knowledge is communicated to learners by initiating interaction which typically involves the delivery of sequences of oral instructions. Finally, with a view to maximising the learning opportunities afforded by a particular task, the teacher adopts the role of ‘manager’ and closely monitors and organises students’ contributions and participation. Overall, the L2 teacher’s contribution to classroom discourse can be described in terms of two distinct functions (Hammadou and Bernhardt 1987; Seedhouse 1995). On the one hand, the teacher’s verbal involvement in classroom discourse entails imparting L2 knowledge to learners by exposing them to L2 input, providing them with appropriate language forms and creating opportunities for L2 practice. On the other hand, teachers are institutionally obligated to manage classroom events by directing the learners’ behaviour and organising their work. In other words, as Long (1983, 9) aptly observes, in language teaching, L2 is both “the vehicle and the object of instruction.” To conclude, in pedagogic speech events the language used by the participants appears to operate across two domains: the instructional one – where it is used instrumentally for purely organisational purposes, and the naturalistic one – where real-life-like language serves as a model for learners. Willis (1981; 1992) observes that, when analysing classroom discourse, it is essential to approach these two different uses of language separately. Following Sinclair and Brazil (1982, 23), she adopts the terms “Outer” and “Inner structure”, which refer to, respectively, the language used for controlling and stimulating learner output and the language practice itself. Being pedagogic in nature, the Outer structure enables classroom activities to occur by providing a framework of the lesson. The Inner structure includes the actual examples of the target language which serve as language samples for learners. Interestingly, for Willis, it is the Outer structure which deserves to be regarded as naturalistic (or natural). She argues that the target language samples which constitute the Inner structure “bear little resemblance to possible sequences in ‘normal discourse’” and are, therefore, deprived of

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their communicative value (1992, 163). Similarly, Widdowson (1980) maintains that the instructional talk of an L2 classroom is more natural than the pedagogically processed target language forms. Other researchers (for example, Majer 1988; 2003; Seedhouse 1996) reserve the term “naturalistic” to describe the real-life language as used in social interactions outside the L2 classroom. To avoid terminological ambiguities, in this chapter, the terms “pedagogic” and “naturalistic” are henceforth used solely with reference to the two varieties of classroom discourse as discussed above. The language of non-pedagogic interactions and real-life speech events is referred to as “authentic”, “natural” or “genuine.”

3. Authentic language use in an L2 classroom When it comes to the position and role of authentic language in the second language classroom, two approaches can be distinguished in classroom-based second language acquisition research. The primary issue that researchers have attempted to address is the likelihood of replicating natural language in a formal, educational setting. Some scholars have stressed the institutional nature of classroom discourse, thus dismissing the possibility of naturalistic discourse in a classroom setting. McTear (1975), for example, observes that typical classroom exchanges (such as substitution drills) are not representative of authentic contexts in that they are not likely to take place outside language classrooms. Additionally, such pseudo-communicative exchanges are mechanical and involve automatic responses which do not occur in spontaneous, natural speech. Seedhouse (1996, 16) maintains that replicating genuine communication in the classroom is “both paradoxical and unattainable” and argues in favour of approaching classroom language as an institutional variety of discourse. This is because the linguistic forms and patterns produced by the learners are directly related to (and cannot be separated from) the pedagogical purposes imposed by the teachers who operate within the confines of the instructional setting (1996, 21). As a result, classroom discourse should be viewed as a sociolinguistic variety of discourse which cannot be described in pedagogical terms. The institutional pressures resulting from curriculum and task demands are highlighted further by NiĪegorodcew (2007), who sees classroom discourse as deeply embedded within the pedagogical setting. With respect to the possible (in)authenticity of classroom discourse, Majer (1988) notes that the second language classroom constitutes an authentic and fully legitimate social setting. However, from a purely linguistic perspective, the discourse and interaction that take place

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there is fairly routinised and pre-modified. Moreover, Majer (2003, 219) clearly opposes a polarised approach to pedagogic and non-pedagogic interaction and discourse and suggests that these should be regarded as two extreme points on a continuum between spontaneous and pedagogic communication, rather than seen as mutually exclusive. A completely different perspective on the place of authentic language and genuine communication in the second language classroom is adopted by researchers involved in investigating the classroom practices of communicative language teaching. Nunan (1987; 1991) and Kumaravadivelu (1993), for instance, see natural communication as lying at the core of classroom events and consider it the primary goal of teaching. For Ellis (1988; 1992; 1999) one of the inherent features of real-life communication is the unregulated nature of the turn-taking mechanisms. To create opportunities for authentic language practice during L2 lessons, decisions concerning the rights of participation and the allocation of turns should be delegated to learners and result from self-regulated competition. Strong communicative sentiments are also evident in Meddings and Thornbury’s (2009) Dogme approach to teaching a L2. This innovative methodology is purely and completely communication-driven in that it promotes conversation as a natural, interactive and dialogic form of communication which underlies the processes of socialisation. Another key principle of this approach is the rejection of any form of institutionalisation of the learning process (such as, for example, an external language syllabus) in favour of nurturing the students’ inbuilt language learning mechanisms as manifested in their emergent language. Needless to say, according to Meddings and Thornbury (2009) natural communication is essential in the L2 learning process.

4. The study Our main concern in the research part of this study is to gauge the effectiveness of teacher’s instructional talk in terms of the choice of a particular discourse type in managing collaborative speaking tasks by trainee teachers of English as Foreign Language in Polish secondary state schools. More specifically, our aim is to determine whether the application of a given discourse type by the teacher is in line with the goals of a particular speaking activity. When addressing these issues, we postulate the following research hypotheses: 1. Naturalistic discourse is subordinate to the pedagogic one. 2. Pedagogic and naturalistic types may coexist only at specific levels of discourse structure.

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3. Mixing the two types of discourse violates the discourse structure of classroom events thus obstructing the realization of teacher's local goals. To verify our research hypotheses, we analysed the data with a view to attending to the rather complex relationship between language, interaction and the learner in the L2 classroom, and in particular to those elements of teacher talk that combine the realisation of procedural aims with pedagogic ones.

4.1. Participants The participants of the present study are Polish pre-service trainee teachers with little or no teaching experience in a formal context. They are MA students working towards a degree in linguistics, applied linguistics or literature. Their competence level falls between C1 and C2 according to the CEFR common reference levels. Each of the participants has completed a teacher training programme that included 60 contact hours of workshop-based seminars covering the basics of the Communicative Approach, and 30 hours of lectures in Foreign Language Methodology. The programme also included a 30-hour observation practice, during which the participants were obliged to complete observation tasks, and a 90-hour teaching practice which was assessed by course instructors.

4.2. Data collection The data used in the present study include the transcripts of the lessons conducted by the participants during their teaching practice in Polish secondary schools. The learners were 16-18-year-olds and their competence levels varied from A2 to B1. Forty-seven lessons were collected and then transcribed using the rankscale analysis notation. For the purpose of the analysis, only selected transcripts were used to illustrate teachers’ and learners’ applications of pedagogic or naturalistic types of discourse with particular moves, exchanges and transactions. The first stage of our analysis involved examining the transcripts in terms of the use of the pedagogic and naturalistic discourse. We focused on the instances of teacher talk which are used to organise, execute and evaluate collaborative speaking tasks. A number of extracts were selected which best illustrate the dominant patterns of the use of the two discourse types in our data. We also addressed the issue of using the two types of

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discourse across the ranks. Finally, in order to explore the potential dangers that stem from the mixing of different types of discourse within various ranks of discourse structure, we looked at the discourse structure of the selected samples and closely investigated the effectiveness of the teacher’s language in terms of the learning opportunities afforded by a particular speaking task. The approach we adopted in the analysis can be described as qualitative as our main goal was to present the instances of teacher talk in which the co-occurrence of pedagogic and naturalistic discourse both within and across ranks has a bearing on the quantity and quality of learners’ contributions.

4.3. Procedure In our analysis, we adopted a model outlined in Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), further refined in Sinclair and Coulthard (1992), known as rankscale analysis (henceforth RSA). It distinguishes five levels of discourse structure: act, move, exchange, transaction and lesson. The model is hierarchical in that it is based on a series of ‘consist-of’ relationships. Acts, which constitute the basic rank, combine to form moves. Moves combine to form exchanges, which bond together to create transactions. The highest rank is the lesson. Sinclair and Coulthard (1992) distinguish three primary types of speech act to be identified in classroom discourse: elicitation (requesting a linguistic response), directive (requesting a non-linguistic response) and informative (conveying ideas, facts, opinions and information). Acts are further specified in terms of their discourse functions, which express the verbal behaviours observable in teacher-learner interaction. Initiating moves are characterised by a complex structure, which may include pre-head elements such as markers and starters, which prepare learners for the initiation. The head of each move consists in a semantic carrier of the very function of teacher instruction. Post-head elements, which might follow the head of the act include prompts, clues, cues, bids and nominations. The teacher’s initiation is typically followed by a complementary response predetermined by the opening move. These, together with the optional feedback stage, create an exchange, a selfcontained stage of a lesson. The beginning of an exchange is typically signalled by a boundary exchange with framing and focusing moves, whose function is to introduce the teaching exchange or to inform the learners about what is going to happen.

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4.4. Results and discussion 4.4.1. Pedagogic and naturalistic discourse – a hierarchical structure Our data demonstrate the pervasiveness of pedagogic discourse in teacher talk. The following extract shows that the teacher is resorting to it while initiating the exchange and providing feedback to the learners’ response. The goal of the teacher’s initiation in this stretch of discourse is providing a framework for the students further independent, collaborative work. Extract 1



Ok, so today’s lesson will be appearance and all words concerning appearance and clothes. As a warm up please work in pairs and think of eight adjectives you associate with appearance. And then we will read them. You’ve got three minutes to do it. (...) For example think of a person you find attractive or good looking. They can be positive adjectives and negative ones. Could you? Good-built, beautiful, handsome, tall, short Yes but we would say well-built. [The teacher asks pairs to present their adjectives]

The teacher, by introducing the topic of the lesson and presenting the agenda to the learners, incorporates the pedagogic element into classroom discourse thus imposing this type of discourse onto the students. Their response is in line with the teacher’s initiation – by listing the adjectives, they enter the exchange on pedagogic grounds. Likewise, the teacher’s feedback comments on the quality of learners’ performance. The discourse structure of Extract 1 allows us to see in more detail which elements of structure represent pedagogic, and which naturalistic discourse:

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Table 7–1. Discourse structure of Extract 1 TEACHING EXCHANGE MOVE 1: Focusing Ok, so today’s lesson will be appearance and all words concerning appearance and clothes. MOVE 2: Opening As a warm up please work in pairs and think of eight adjectives you associate with appearance. And then we will read them.

sig

Starter

H

Metastatement

H

Directive

P-H

Informative

You've got three minutes to do it.

P-H

Informative

sig

Starter

H

Directive

P-H

Directive

P-H

Prompt

H

Reply

Yes

H

Accept

but we would say well-built.

P-H

Evaluate

BOUND EXCHANGE MOVE 1: Opening For example think of a person you find attractive or good-looking. They can be positive adjectives or negative ones. Could you? MOVE 2: Answering Good-built, beautiful, handsome, tall, short MOVE 3: Follow-up

The focusing move of the teaching exchange consists of two acts: starter and metastatement, whose function is to inform the learners what the topic of the lesson is going to be. In the opening move that follows the teacher resorts to instructional talk. The three acts that form the opening move also exhibit the qualities of pedagogic discourse. Along the same lines, the answering and follow-up moves are pedagogically-driven.

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The former provides the answer to the directive which acts as the head of the opening move. The latter, formed from two acts, informs the learners that their contribution was correct. As demonstrated above, the exchange does not contain any elements typical of naturalistic discourse. The exchange presented in Extract 1 is exemplary of virtually every lesson initiation from our database. Such types of pedagogically-driven exchanges are also characteristic of the contexts in which the teacher initiates an informing or directing transaction. Pedagogic discourse, therefore, seems to occur at the onset of each of the three top ranks: lesson, transaction and exchange, thus channelling learners’ verbal reactions and, consequently, determining discourse choices at each rank. Many lessons demonstrate the superiority of the pedagogic discourse over its naturalistic counterpart. This finding seems consistent with our first research hypothesis in which we postulated that naturalistic discourse is subordinate to the pedagogic one. Further evidence supporting this claim can be found in Extract 2, where it is both the teacher and the learners who signal the need to resort to the pedagogic discourse even though the exchange seems to lend itself to more naturalistic discourse: Extract 2













Now, as a warm-up, you’ve got three words on the blackboard describing appearance. And in pairs discuss if they are positive or negative for men and women. And then join another pair and compare. Hair is ... err, ... for women, err, I don’t know. To co my mamy mówiü? [What are we supposed to say?] Your opinion. Aaaa! Opinion! So, Hair, ..., err, long hair is good for women, and... And for men. Yeah. To bez sensu jest. Sorko, co my mamy w koĔcu mówiü? [It doesn’t make sense. Miss, what are we supposed to say?] For example, a man having long hair. Is it positive or negative? Bartek ma dáugie i nie jest tak Ĩle wcale. [Bartek has long hair and it’s not so bad, really.] In English, please. Bartek has long. Yeah. Is it positive or negative? Positive. I think. Very good. And skin? Bartek skin? No, men and women. Positive or negative? Skin? What do you think?

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Chapter Seven Sorko, moĪe ona mogáaby sobie kogoĞ innego wybraü. WeĨ zejdĨ ze mnie, okay? Bo jak ja ci build opiszĊ, to bĊdziesz miaáa takie positive, Īe... [Miss, can she choose someone else? Get off me, will you? Or else, if I describe your build, it'll be so positive that...] Bartek, in English, please.

The bound exchange initiated by (“What are we supposed to say?”) clearly demonstrates that for the learner it is not the communicative value that should be central to the task. From the elicitation act, it seems that the learner voluntarily makes a shift from what is originally meant to be a naturalistically-driven teaching exchange to the pedagogicallyoriented one, in which the opinions expressed by the learners are not as important as the expected form in which they are uttered. A similar pattern occurs in the next exchange, in which provides the follow-up move to the teaching exchange and the opening move of the bound exchange (“It doesn’t make sense. Miss, what are we supposed to say?”). Such markers, signalling the need to meet the expectations of the teacher, turn an otherwise communicative task into the one in which the pedagogic element becomes dominant. The teacher also attempts to signal what type of discourse seems more at home. On two occasions she naturally dismisses learners’ contributions in L1 by providing the accept act (“In English, please”). The follow-up move (“Very good”) that follows ’s answering move (“Positive. I think”) is not motivated on naturalistic grounds in that it is not clear why having long hair should be so enthusiastically welcome by the teacher. Interestingly, those elements of the exchange that do follow the naturalistic mode are realised by the students in L1. From the two extracts discussed above it seems that pedagogic discourse permeates classroom interaction at all levels of discourse structure. At the highest rank, lesson, it is a natural choice that stems from lesson planning and the execution of teacher’s pedagogic goals. At the transaction level, the type of discourse is determined by the one used at a lower rank of discourse structure – exchange. It is the teaching exchanges that should be characterised by a homogenous use of a particular discourse type. As will be illustrated in subsequent sections, deviating from a particular kind of discourse within the exchange results in the teacher’s failure to achieve her local goals. The language used in transactions, on the other hand, can be described as a cline, in which, the shifts from one type of discourse to the other occur naturally depending on the orientation of a specific teaching exchange. A graphic representation of the distribution of pedagogic and naturalistic discourse across the ranks of discourse structure is presented below:

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Figure 7–1. The hierarchical structure of the distribution of classroom discourse

4.4.2. Misplacing the genre Being one of the primary instruments for organising classroom activities and regulating learners’ behaviour, the pedagogic variety of classroom discourse emerges as the superior mode of communication in the L2 classroom. As we have seen above, pedagogic discourse plays a significant role in initiating teacher-learner interaction, especially when delivering instructions or providing feedback during tasks which require autonomous learner collaboration. However, the use of the institutionalised variety of discourse remains motivated only as long as its major, long-term goal is to provide learners with genuine opportunities for practising the target language. Understood in this way, pedagogic discourse constitutes a means to an end (which is to create an environment conducive to naturalistic language practice). Since in the language classroom the responsibility for discourse control lies primarily with the teacher (Walsh 2006, 2011), it is the teacher who needs to exercise particular caution when it comes to selecting the type of discourse used at a particular stage of the lesson. Our data suggest that it is precisely the area of discourse control and alternation between discourse types which causes the greatest difficulty for trainee teachers. The participants of the study were found to experience problems with switching between the pedagogic and naturalistic discourse, or more specifically, relinquishing control of pedagogic talk and making a welltimed transition into more naturalistic discourse.

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The teacher’s inability to select appropriate discourse type and alter it depending on the local learning goals is illustrated in Extract 3 below. Extract 3







W tym üwiczeniu chcĊ, ĪebyĞcie… po prostu odpowiedzieli na te pytania, za chwilkĊ sobie przetáumaczymy wszystko, co to znaczy, ĪebyĞcie wiedzieli po prostu… Jedna osoba bĊdzie zadawaáa pytania, a druga osoba bĊdzie tylko odpowiadaáa jak czĊsto wykonuje róĪne czynnoĞci. Na przykáad, in your family, how often do you… i tutaj macie wszystkie zdania. [In this exercise I want you to... simply answer the questions, in a moment we'll translate it all, what it means, so that you simply know... One person will be asking questions and the other will only say how often they do different activities. For example, in your family, how often do you ... and here you've got all the sentences.] Could anybody read the sentence number one? Ride bicycle to school and work. Sometimes. And what does it mean? JeĨdzisz rowerem do szkoáy i pracy. [You go to school and work by bike.] Very good. Next one? [another student volunteers] Never. Ale nie odpowiadaj… chodzi o to… nie odpowiadajcie mi jeszcze jak czĊsto co robicie, na razie chcĊ tylko Īeby wszyscy zrozumieli zdania, które tu są, ĪebyĞmy sobie przetáumaczyli. [Don't answer it yet... I mean... don't answer how often you do things, now I just want everybody to understand the sentences, to translate them.]

In this part of the lesson, the teacher delivers instructions for a speaking task whose goal is to give practice in asking and answering questions concerning everyday activities. In order to provide learners with the necessary details, the teacher begins her instructions in the pedagogic discourse mode and explains what the learners are expected to do. She then proceeds to checking understanding of the first input example, which is read aloud by one of the learners (S1). In response to her request, provides a translation, which is accepted by the teacher. In the next exchange the teacher attempts to appoint another student to continue (“Next one?”). Up to this point, the teacher’s goals are purely organisational and the discourse used can be described as pedagogic. In the ensuing part of the interaction, another learner (S2) volunteers and misinterprets the teacher’s utterance (“Next one?”) as an encouragement to respond to ’s words (“Ride a bicycle to school and work. Sometimes.”). In simple terms, treats ’s earlier utterance

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(“How often do you ride a bicycle to school to work?”) as a question and the teacher’s words (“Next one?”) as a nomination urging any learner to answer it. As a result, replies naturalistically in accordance with his personal experiences (“Never.”). By doing so, follows, quite understandably, the teacher’s earlier instructions to ask and answer questions. The discourse structure of Extract 1 below offers a clear illustration of the functional aspects of this fragment of the lesson. Table 7–2. Discourse structure of Extract 3 TEACHING EXCHANGE 1 MOVE 1: Opening W tym üwiczeniu chcĊ, ĪebyĞcie… po prostu odpowiedzieli na te pytania, [In this exercise I want you to... simply answer the the questions], za chwilkĊ sobie przetáumaczymy wszystko, co to znaczy, ĪebyĞcie wiedzieli po prostu… [in a moment we'll translate it all, what it means, so that you simply know...] Jedna osoba bĊdzie zadawaáa pytania, a druga osoba bĊdzie tylko odpowiadaáa jak czĊsto wykonuje róĪne czynnoĞci. [One person will be asking questions and the other will only say how often they do different activities] BOUND EXCHANGE 1

H

informative

P

P-H

informative

P

P-H

informative

P

Na przykáad, [For example,]

sig

starter

P

in your family, how often do you… i tutaj macie wszystkie zdania. [and here you've got all the sentences.] Could anybody read the sentence number one? MOVE 2: Answering Ride bicycle to school and work. Sometimes.

P-H

informative

P

P-H

informative

P

P-H

directive

P

H

reply

P

MOVE 1: Opening

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TEACHING EXCHANGE 2 MOVE 1: Opening And what does it mean?

H

elicitation

P

MOVE 2: Answering JeĨdzisz rowerem do szkoáy i pracy. [You go to school and work by bike.] MOVE 3: Follow-up

H

reply

P

Very good.

H

evaluate

P

H

directive

P

H

respond

N

H

accept

P

TEACHING EXCHANGE 3 MOVE 1: Opening Next one? MOVE 2: Answering [another student volunteers] Never. MOVE 3: Follow-up Ale nie odpowiadaj… chodzi o to… nie odpowiadajcie mi jeszcze jak czĊsto co robicie, na razie chcĊ tylko Īeby wszyscy zrozumieli zdania, które tu są, ĪebyĞmy sobie przetáumaczyli. [Don't aswer it yet... I mean... don't answer how often you do things, now I just want everybody to understand the sentences, to translate them.]

On closer examination of the discourse structure of Extract 3, it becomes apparent that out of the four exchanges it consists of, the first three are consistent in terms of the type of discourse used. In all of these exchanges, the teacher initiates interaction with an opening move originating within the pedagogical domain and the learners respond accordingly. As regards Teaching Exchange 3, the teacher’s initiation can be described as pedagogic (“Next one?”) but it is met with a naturalistic response from the learner (“Never.”). Although, the learner’s response matches the learning goals set for the activity (question-answer practice), the teacher chooses to return the interaction onto the pedagogic track by stating straightforwardly that she does not want the learners to answer any questions but, rather, expects them to provide translations of the input

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examples. One explanation of the teacher’s insistence on remaining within the pedagogic domain is the need to ensure the clarity of task content. However, checking understanding of task content cannot be seen as a pedagogic goal in itself as its main function is to enable learners to perform the speaking activity. Judging from the teacher’s final instructions, in which she prevents the learners from providing any answers, she has a misconceived notion of what the learning goal of the task is, which is reflected in her discourse choices. In sum, the exchange illustrated above shows the teacher’s failure to acknowledge the need for a switch from pedagogic to naturalistic discourse, even though there are clear signals from the learners that such a switch is possible and welcome. The discourse structure of this fragment of the lesson indicates that mixing pedagogic and naturalistic discourse at the level of exchange has negative influence on the realisation of the task objectives. This observation provides partial confirmation for the claim made in the second research hypothesis in which we postulated that the pedagogic and naturalistic discourse cannot exist side by side at all the levels of discourse structure. It appears that it is precisely at the level of exchange where switching between the two types of discourse may lead to obstructing the flow of communication as the goal of the task becomes obscured by the teacher’s inability to adjust her language to the realities of the situation. Additionally, mixing the two discourse types in Teaching Exchange 3 reflects negatively on the effectiveness of the whole transaction presented in Extract 3 (as the learners are deprived of any opportunity to ask and answer questions concerning every day activities), thus violating the discourse structure of this part of the lesson. In any case, the data presented in Extract 3 seem to corroborate our claim made in Research Hypothesis 3 with respect to the level of exchange. Extract 4 below provides an even more vivid illustration of mixing pedagogic and naturalistic discourse at the exchange level, which has a direct bearing on the realisation of the learning goals set for the task at hand. This extract also shows the omnipresence and superiority of pedagogic talk in teacher-student interaction. Extract 4



Your homework is: write five sentences about you... I chcemy, ĪebyĞcie napisali piĊü zdaĔ o sobie, oczywiĞcie uĪywając üwiczenia pierwszego, które przed chwilą ĪeĞmy zrobili z ksiąĪek… [We want you to write five sentences about yourself, of course using activity 1 we've just done] Czyli co siĊ robi w mojej rodzinie? [So what we do in my family?]

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Chapter Seven W waszej rodzinie, albo co wy robicie… Za chwilkĊ tu wam napiszĊ przykáad, tylko… chciaábym ĪebyĞcie po prostu odpowiadali caáymi zdaniami tak jak teraz, tak jak zadawaliĞmy pytania… [In your family or what you do... In a moment I'll give you an example but... I'd like you to write full sentences just like now, just like we've just asked questions] A moĪna co siĊ lubi robiü, czego siĊ nie lubi robiü? [And can we write what we like and what we don't like doing?] Nie, nie… raczej tu nie interesuje mnie to co robicie naprawdĊ… chociaĪ oczywiĞcie moĪecie… najwaĪniejsze jest to, ĪebyĞcie záoĪyli poprawne zdania i to caáe zdania, tak na przykáad jak macie ‘how often do you use public transport?’, odpowiadacie [T writes it on the board] I… always… use… public… transport. [No, no... I'm not really interested in what you really do... but of course you could... the most important thing is that you write the sentences correctly, full sentences, for example if you have 'how often do you use public transport?' you write [T writes on the board] 'I... always... use... public... transport.]

In Extract 4 the teacher gives instructions for a homework assignment which involves writing five sentences about family routines. Needing further clarification, the learners ask a range of questions in which they enquire whether it is permissible to describe their personal experiences (“Czyli co siĊ robi w mojej rodzinie?” [So what we do in my family?], “A moĪna co siĊ lubi robiü, czego siĊ nie lubi robiü?” [And can we write what we like and what we don't like doing?]. In response to these enquiries, the teacher declares firmly that she is not interested in the learners’ experiences but in their ability to construct grammatically correct and complete sentences. Again, paradoxically, the attempt at creating a context for naturalistic L2 practice comes from the learners. The teacher, however, holds on to the pedagogic mode and rejects the learners’ initiative. The analysis of the discourse structure of this interaction suggests that the lack of consistency in discourse use at the level of exchange may reduce the learning opportunities created by a particular task. The teacher’s inability to alternate between pedagogic and naturalistic discourse, as manifested at the lowest ranks of discourse structure, was also observed at the closing stage of speaking tasks when the teacher provided learners with feedback. Extract 5 below is taken from a part of the lesson in which learners were asked to prepare and act out telephone conversations. As the preparation stage of the activity has been completed, the teacher instructs the learners to present their contributions.

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Extract 5

Ok. The stage is yours. Here you have the phones, one for you and one for you. [T gives mobile phones to students] Listen to yours… Oh, hey guys, listen to your friends and the task for the other groups is to catch the phrase, the expression, that’s you know, like the one that you’ve got in your dialogues. Ok? So start.

Hello, father!

Hello Jessica! Where are you?! I’m starving. When will you come to me, to my house and make me something to eat.

I can’t come to you right now because I have no gas for my car, and what’s more the petrol station doesn’t work.

What a shame. So, who will make me a dinner?

So, go to the supermarket or if you can’t ask your neighbour to do it. Buy something, for example, a frozen pizza or something like that and heat it up. Sorry again that I can’t come to you.

It’s ok my little daughter. Don’t worry. I’ll try to do my best.

Ok, bye.

Great. [ovations]

Ok, next group. Oh, sorry, did you catch the expression?

Yeeees.

Which one?

Anyone?

No one, ok. We will talk about it later. [3 further students act out a similar conversation, the class is amused and applauds their peers]

Very good. Did you… To be honest, I didn’t catch the expressions. Did you use it?

No. [laughter]

No… Ok. [2 students act out another conversation, the class is amused and applauds their peers)

Ok, thank you. Did anyone catch the phrase? You didn’t listen?

Ok, forget that. Next group. [T points to the next group] Try to catch the expression, sorry.

In the initial stages of her instructions the teacher sets a clear, linguistic goal for the learners. They are to listen to their friends’ dialogues in order to “catch the phrase, the expression (...) like the one (...) in (...) dialogues.” Interestingly, at no point during the earlier stages of the activity does the teacher explain clearly what kind of expressions she has in mind. After the first pair of students presents their role-play with great success, the teacher praises them for their effort (“Great!”) and enquires whether the audience managed to note down examples of the target language (“the expressions”). It appears that even though the learners declare that they carried out the task,

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none of them can provide specific examples of the target language. The teacher postpones any comments concerning the students’ failure to follow her instructions (“We will talk about it later.”) and appoints another pair of students to act out their dialogue. Another role-play follows and, again, the audience applauds the speakers. Yet again, the teacher opts for pedagogic discourse to point out the absence of target language forms in the learners’ output (“To be honest, I didn’t catch the expressions. Did you use it?”), which causes amusement in other learners. A similar scenario is enacted one more time, and the teacher responds in exactly the same way – she enquires whether any target phrases were noticed. This time the learners openly admit that they were not paying attention to the target expressions. The teacher instructs them to focus on the target language. Perhaps the most striking feature of Extract 5 is that the majority of the teacher’s follow-up moves are dominated by pedagogic discourse, which has serious implications for the rapport in the classroom. Despite a very relaxed classroom atmosphere, the teacher chooses not to resort to more naturalistic language. As a result, she appears distanced and uninterested in the learners’ contributions. The learners, on the other hand, are very relaxed and eager to listen to their peers’ contributions. They also persistently ignore the teacher’s pedagogical interventions. In fact, the interaction between the teacher and the learners illustrated in Extract 5 can be described as superficial. Although the teacher and the learners communicate, they seem to be operating on two parallel but completely different plateaux. The teacher’s language indicates that she can only function within a strictly pedagogic, institutionalised domain. The learners’ emotional engagement in the task suggests that they have lost their inhibitions and are willing to interact in a more naturalistic fashion. The teacher, however, sticks to the rigid, pedagogically imposed frames of interaction and fails to take advantage of the opportunity to practise L2 in a naturalistic way.

5. Conclusion The data presented in our study demonstrate the pervasiveness of pedagogic discourse and its superiority to its naturalistic counterpart in the lessons conducted by trainee teachers. The dominance of this type of language is motivated primarily by teacher’s urge to achieve lesson goals, which, in most cases assume some material to be assimilated, and the setting, in which the teacher and the learners agree to follow certain

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patterns. Naturalistic discourse occurs rather sporadically, mainly in tasks that resemble real communicative encounters. From the data collected in our study it seems apparent that the two types of discourse often co-occur within particular ranks of discourse structure. The most typical domains for pedagogic and naturalistic discourse to appear at a given level are lesson and transaction. When the two types are found to co-exist at lower levels of structure, i.e. exchange or move, it often makes obscure rather than clarifies teacher’s intentions. As a result, learners’ output departs from that intended by the teacher. Frequently resorting to pedagogic discourse, especially in contexts where naturalistic should suffice, often leaves learners at a loss. In the long run, such an attitude on the part of the teacher can have a detrimental effect on the learners’ motivation and their willingness to participate in classroom interaction. This is because the teacher’s excessive use of pedagogic discourse may be interpreted as a clear signal that it is the main language of L2 lessons and, possibly, the goal of learning. The research presented in this study supports two out of the three hypotheses that we postulated at the beginning. Firstly, pedagogic discourse is superior to the naturalistic one at virtually any level of discourse structure. Secondly, pedagogic and naturalistic types co-exist only at the two highest ranks: lesson and transaction. The third hypothesis has been proved only partially. It appears that mixing the two types of discourse has a detrimental effect only if used at lower ranks: exchanges and moves.

Bibliography Allwright, Dick. 1984. “The Importance of Interaction in Classroom Language Learning.”Applied Linguistics 5: 156-71. Allwright, Dick and Kathleen, M. Bailey. 1991. Focus on the Language Classroom: An Introduction to Classroom Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berry, Margaret. 1981. “Systemic Linguistics and Discourse Analysis: a Multi-layered Approach to Exchange structure.” In Studies in Discourse Analysis, edited by Malcom Coulthard and Martin Montgomery, 120-145. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Cazden, Courtney, B. 1988. Classroom Discourse. The Language of Teaching and Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Christie, Frances. 2002. Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Functional Perspective. London: Continuum.

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Coulthard, Malcolm. 1992. Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge. Coulthard, Malcolm and David Brazil. 1979. Exchange Structure. Discourse Analysis Monograph no. 5. Birmingham: ELR. Coulthard, Malcolm and Martin Montgomery. 1981. Studies in Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Ellis, Rod.1988. Classroom Second Language Development. New York: Prentice Hall. —. 1992. Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. —. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford University Press. —. 1999. “Making the Classroom Acquisition Rich.” In Learning a Second Language Through Interaction, edited by Rod Ellis, 211-230. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ernst, Gisela. 1994. “Talking Circle: Conversation, Negotiation in an ESL Classroom.” TESOL Quarterly 28: 293-322. Hammadou, JoAnn and Elizabeth, B. Bernhardt. 1987. “On Being and Becoming a Foreign Language Teacher.” Theory into Practice 26: 301306. Johnson, Karen, E. 1995. Understanding Communication in Second Language Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. 1993. “Maximizing Learning Potential in the Communicative Classroom.” ELT Journal 47/1: 12-21. Long, Michael. 1983. “Inside the "Black Box”. In Classroom Oriented Research in Second Language Acquisition, edited by Herbert W. Seliger and Michael Long, 3-38. Rowley: Newbury House. Mehan, Hugh. 1979. Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Majer, Jan. 1988. “Input and Classroom Realities: A Rationale for not Over-delaying Oral Practice.” In A Collection of Papers from the 21st IATEFL Conference edited by Eddie Atkinson and Ray Janssens, 8-19. Duisburg: L.A.U.D. —. 1998. “Poles Apart? Bridging the Gap between Naturalistic and Pedagogic Discourse.” In Innovations and Outcomes in English Language Teaching Education, edited by Patrick, J. Melia, 145-163. Warszawa: The British Council. Majer, J. 2003. Interactive Discourse in the Foreign Language Classroom. àódĨ: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu àódzkiego. Meddings, Luke and Scott Thornbury. 2009. Teaching Unplugged. Dogme in English Language Teaching. Delta Publishing.

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McTear, Michael, F. 1975. “Structure and Categories of Foreign Language Teaching Sequences.” In Working Papers: Language Teaching Classroom Research. edited by Dick Allwright, 97-130. Essex: University of Essex, Department of Language and Linguistics. Mitchell, Rosamond. 1988. Communicative Language Teaching. London: CILT. Nassaji Hossein and Gordon Wells. 2000. “What's the Use of 'Triadic Dialogue'?: An Investigation of Teacher-Student Interaction.”Applied Linguistics 21: 376-406. NiĪegorodcew, Anna. 1991. Dyskurs interakcyjny a kompetencja komunikacyjna w jĊzyku obcym. Kraków: Uniwersytet JagielloĔski. —. 2007. Input for Instructed L2 Learners: The Relevance of Relevance. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Nunan, David. 1987. “Communicative Language Teaching. Making It Work.” ELT Journal 43: 111-118. —. 1991. “Communicative Tasks and the Language Curriculum.” TESOL Quarterly 25/2: 279-295. Nunan, David and Kathleen M. Bailey. 2009. Exploring Second Language Classroom Research: A Comprehensive Guide. Boston, MA: Heinle. Sawyer, Keith, R. 2004. “Creative Teaching: Collaborative Discussion as Disciplined Improvisation.” Educational Researcher 33:12-20. —. 2006. “Analyzing Collaborative Discourse.” In Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, edited by Keith, R. Sawyer, 187-204. New York: Cambridge University Press. Seedhouse, Paul. 1995. “L2 Classroom Transcripts: Data in Search of a Methodology?”. TESL-EJ 1: a-1. —. 1996. “Classroom Interaction: Possibilities and Impossibilities.” ELT Journal 50:17-24. Sinclair, John and Malcolm Coulthard. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse: the English Used by Teachers and Pupils. London: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, John and Malcolm Coulthard. 1992. “Towards an Analysis of Discourse”. In Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis, edited by Malcolm Coulthard, 1-34. London and New York: Routledge. Sinclair, Johh and David Brazil.1982. Teacher Talk. London: Oxfrd University Press. Thornbury, Scott. 1996. “Teachers Research Techer Training.” ELT Journal 50, 279-289. —. 2002. “Training in Instructional Conversation”. In Language in Language Teacher Education, edited by Hugh Trappes-Lomax and Gibson Ferguson, 95-106. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Van Lier, Leo. 1988. The Classroom and the Language Learner. London: Longman. —. 1984. “Analysing Interaction in Second Language Classrooms.” ELTJournal 38:160-169. —. 1991. “Inside the Classroom: Learning Processes and Teaching Procedures.” Applied Language Learning 2:29-69. Walsh, Steve. 2006. Investigating Classroom Discourse. London and New York: Routledge. —. 2011. Exploring Classroom Discourse Language in Action. New York: Routledge. Widdowson, Henry G. 1980. “Contrived and Natural language.” EFL Bulletin 4, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Willis, Jane. 1981. “Spoken discourse in the ELT classroom: a system of analysis and a description.” Unpublished MA thesis, University of Birmingham Research Archive. Accessed July 25, 2012, http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/458/1/Willis81MA.pdf —. 1992. “Inner and Outer: Spoken Discourse in the Language Classroom”. In Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis, edited by Malcolm Coulthard, 162-182. London and New York: Routledge.

CHAPTER EIGHT A PLACE FOR TEACHER-TALK IN INTERACTIVE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS PAULINE FOSTER

Abstract In this chapter I will discuss the role of interaction in developing both knowledge and skill in a second language (L2) arguing that current interactive approaches to L2 assume knowledge and skill arise together from meaning-based interactions. I will look at the Interaction Hypothesis (Long 1996) which argues that interaction is supportive of, even central to, development in foreign languages, and also at how this idea has been widely applied to language classrooms. I will consider the genesis of Long’s model in Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1982) and then review the empirical work which has been based on it, arguing that Long’s theoretical account has been modified and diluted in the process, particularly in the shift from the importance of negotiating meaning at moments of L2 communication failure to asking questions at moments of interactional success (Mackey 2007). I will also review the perceived central role of interaction in language classrooms, and the devaluation of other kinds of classroom activities which this can entail. I will argue that there is not sufficient evidence for us to say that a language learner who is not actively interacting is not developing anything useful in terms of L2 knowledge or skill. I will end by observing that, unfortunately, teacher trainers’ and inspectors’ enthusiasm for classroom interaction can lead them to downgrade methodologies in which teacher-talk or silent study plays more than the most minimal role. As a consequence, non-interactive choices in language teaching are at an unfair and unproven disadvantage when it comes to evaluating best classroom practice.

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1. Introduction Researchers and teachers generally agree that interaction is an important part of second language acquisition (SLA), as a source of knowledge of the structures of the second language (L2) and as a vehicle for the development of skill in using this knowledge. While researchers (as we shall see below) tend to look more narrowly at what kinds of interaction provide the best opportunities for the learners to get L2 knowledge, teaching guides (Hedge 2000; Ur 1996) emphasise the importance of active learner participation more generally. Two pedagogic assumptions about interaction are discernible in teaching guides. The first is that if learner interaction is good for SLA, then classes need to incorporate lots of it. The second is that learners who are not interacting much in class are not gaining enough from being there (Weaver and Qi 2005). In this chapter I will trace the idea of interaction as the sine qua non of SLA (Allwright 1984) from its root in nativist approaches to language acquisition and its importance to sociocultural approaches to language acquisition, to its adoption by communicative language teaching and its embrace by classroom assessors as a gold standard of best practice. Along the way, we will see that the tightly argued theoretical benefits of interaction to language acquisition are loosened in pedagogy and used to downgrade other kinds of teaching, specifically that involving teacher-talk, which may well have a validity of its own. I begin by considering how interaction is uncontroversially of benefit to language classrooms, and follow this by digging into the theoretical constructs that link interaction to learning. I will look, necessarily rather briefly, at the research evidence exploring these constructs, before returning to the place of classroom interaction and teacher-talk in pedagogic best practice and teacher assessment.

2. Learner interaction in classrooms The thrust of received wisdom in pedagogy in recent decades has been away from a teacher being the ‘sage on the stage’ towards the teacher being more of a ‘guide on the side’. In schools in the UK for example, classroom furniture is not organised as in the past with rows of desks facing a teacher standing on a slightly raised platform in front of a blackboard. Groups of pupils are often to be found sitting around tables arranged in small squares while the teacher roams between them. In stark contrast to the state of affairs until the 1960s, classrooms today are not places where pupils are always silent until called upon to speak, and work

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is not necessarily set as copying out information displayed on the board or declaimed by the teacher. Rather, the pupils are encouraged to work together at tasks they have been set, finding information online or in books and sharing it in discussion with other members of their group. Instead of the teacher calling upon them to answer display questions, they call upon the teacher to offer explanations when they need one. Classrooms full of talking and bustling activity are not regarded, as they probably would have been fifty years ago, as chaotic and undisciplined, but as places where pupils are actively engaged in creating their own opportunities for learning. The zeitgeist has certainly changed. (see Foster 1972 for a full discussion.) It has changed in language teaching in a similar fashion. The educational premium currently put on such ‘discovery’ learning in learner-centred classrooms chimes nicely with the idea that best practice in foreign language teaching takes place in highly interactive classrooms with plenty of opportunities for groups of learners to try out expressing their own meanings, not parroting those laid out in texts or recited by teachers, and certainly not in listening passively to a teacher standing at the front talking about the language. Unlike other objects of study, such as mathematics or geography, a language is as much a practical skill to be executed as it is a body of knowledge to be acquired. Language teaching therefore must nurture both accurate knowledge and fluent skill. As interaction can serve both purposes, learners who do not participate in interactions are doubly missing out. It’s not surprising therefore that teaching guides (Harmer 1983; Nunan 1991; Hedge 2000; Ur 1996) discuss the importance of learner participation and how to foster it. It is as well to be quite clear that there are many uncontroversial benefits to interactive foreign language classrooms in which learners are given opportunities to use the language meaningfully with each other. Practising real-time listening and speaking skills in small groups rather than in a whole class situations helps minimise the embarrassment and fear that can accompany public performance in an imperfectly known language. It is clear also that active participation in small group interaction reduces the amount of time a large group of learners might otherwise spend listening passively to one learner interacting with the teacher. Small group interaction allows more time for learners individually to practise their speaking and listening skills, and allows simultaneously more time for teachers to give help to or interact with individual learners. In addition, small group interaction supports the development of skill in using a wider variety of speech acts (asking, persuading, apologising, denying, etc.) than is possible in teacher-fronted activities. It’s not difficult to argue that

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interactive classrooms allow for potentially more engaging class activities that lock-step classrooms can provide.

3. Models for the place of interaction in language learning It is interesting to look behind the widespread pedagogic endorsement of classroom interaction for the theoretical models that support it. There are two perspectives which address the issue, cognitive and socio-cultural, both of which put interaction at the heart of language learning, though for rather different reasons. From the cognitive perspective, Krashen (1985) famously claimed that there was only one route to acquiring knowledge of an L2, and that was comprehension. When a learner understands a message in the L2, he or she has everything necessary to acquire the language in which the message was encoded. This simple and engaging idea is based on the nativist notion that child language acquisition is driven by inborn knowledge of the underpinning structures of all human languages (Universal Grammar or UG), which resides in a metaphorical language acquisition ‘device’ (LAD) in the brain (Chomsky 1959). Offering no mechanism for what such a device might actually do, Chomsky had argued that this was the only possible explanation for the way very young children effortlessly and completely acquire any language they are exposed to. Babies employ their UG endowment to hack into the particular structures of the language(s) used to address them, and ultimately generate their own grammatically correct utterances. In spite of research suggesting that the remarkable linguistic ability of young children is limited to the critical period of childhood (Lenneberg 1967) and that language learning by adults must therefore be qualitatively different, Krashen (1985) was clear that adult language acquisition also proceeds implicitly and incidentally through comprehensible messages reaching the LAD. Observing that children acquire language knowledge long before they start to speak, he claims that the learner/acquirer does not have to play the role of message-sender, only that of message receiver; comprehensible input is the only requirement. Additionally and importantly, Krashen dismisses explicit grammar teaching as pointless. Languages are acquired by adults as by children, incidentally through exposure to meaning and not deliberately through exposure to form. It is obvious, however, that the learning environment for adults needs to be more than rich in comprehensible input. Messages can be successfully understood by mature adults with only partial recourse to processing their linguistic elements, or even (as animals can) with no recourse to their linguistic elements, by exploiting instead accompanying

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gesture, intonation, and knowledge of the context. And it is clear from cases like Wes (Schmidt, 1983) that very successful second language users can be strategic in how little of the morphosyntax they pay attention to. Michael Long (1983; 1996) accepted the central importance of comprehensible input to the process of SLA, but added that it is essential that learners be aware of or notice (Schmidt 1994) formal aspects of the L2 in the input they comprehend, even when these forms are redundant to the meaning. Agreeing with Swain (1985), he argued that learners need to be encouraged to produce the L2 as well as listen to it. When their interlocutor rejects a formally inaccurate message in the L2, learners are led to attend to the source of error, and consequently to modify the message in the direction of greater accuracy or greater precision. Accordingly, in Long’s Interaction Hypothesis (1996) meaningfocussed interactions are key. They avoid the diet of contrived focus on form which learners experience in teacher-led grammar-based classes, and they also avoid the danger of Krashen’s prescribed diet of a focus on meaning where learners can successfully comprehend input without a focus on form. Interactions strike a happy medium between these extremes. They afford learners opportunities to notice gaps in their knowledge of the L2 at moments where they encounter an episode of incomprehensible input or incomprehensible output. At such moments a learner’s attention – the essential element of acquisition – is shifted from language content to language form at exactly the point where it is psycholinguistically most valuable. Long argues that language learners and their interlocutors naturally employ negotiations for meaning (through repetitions, comprehension checks, clarification requests, confirmation requests) in order to monitor and maintain the mutual comprehensibility of their interaction. I would like to suggest that negotiation for meaning, and especially negotiation work that triggers interactional adjustments by the NS or more competent interlocutor, facilitates1 acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways (Long 1996, 156).

Interaction breakdowns are thus valuable. They orient the learner's attention to form at just the times, to just the degree, and in just the places where it can be best exploited by internal learning mechanisms, while only momentarily disturbing the overarching focus on meaning. The sociocultural approach to learning (Vygotsky 1986) also privileges interaction but for very different reasons. It regards language as first and foremost a social activity, and is less interested in what goes on inside

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a learner’s brain than in what goes in the ambient social world. More specifically, it values the way a learner contributes to the social interactions he or she engages in. In this view, interactions allow both adult and child language learners to co-construct utterances that are beyond their existing individual competence, creating so-called “zones of proximal development” (ZPDs). These zones represent potential learning; language which has been constructed through external collaboration is made available to internal development. In Vygotsky’s words (1986, 187) the helping hand of an interlocutor affords the learner “the means of stepping from something one knows to something new.” Creating potential for learning though ZPDs can be seen in a variety of common interactional turns in which learners try to say what they cannnot say and then receive assistance from a fellow learner or a teacher. They are identified for example in scaffolded turns where an utterance is constructed by both speakers, and in other-repairs where the listener offers a corrected version of the speaker’s turn (Donato 1994; Ohta 2001). Other examples include dictagloss collaborations (Swain, 2000) in which learners pool their L2 resources to produce an accurate written summary of a text they have previously listened to, explicitly discussing issues of accuracy. Swain (2000) has used the term “languaging” to describe any dialogic activities in which the parties reflect together upon the L2. On the surface this looks very similar to a focus-on-form valued by cognitive approaches, but where cognitive approaches see a timely focus-on-form as leading to implicit and incidental learning with no need for conscious reflection, in fact rejecting conscious reflection as downright unhelpful, sociocultural approaches value the intentional and explicit nature of gaining knowledge metalinguistically. The two paradigms are so fundamentally different in the way they conceptualise learning that little collaborative work is undertaken (Foster and Ohta 2005 is a rare example). However, both have more to say about gaining L2 knowledge than about developing L2 skills, and both agree that knowledge is gained through active meaningful participation rather than passive listening to pedagogic explanations.

4. Interaction and its role in SLA: the research evidence Sociocultural accounts of language learning tend to be investigated cross-sectionally and qualitatively through microgenetic analyses of snapshots of interaction, with the researcher inferring language development opportunities in episodes where the learners assist one another in using the L2 (e.g. Ohta 2001). Such research is not set up to test a model, but to

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produce descriptions of how it might work. Because of their nonexperimental nature such studies cannot individually show causation, or be generalised. Rather, each develops a small picture which can build into a bigger picture when put together with other such analyses. While the claim is made that learning can be observed in interactions in which learners collaborate to solve a language problem, the analysis is essentially selective and descriptive and there is no way to report the validity of the conclusions. By contrast, cognitive accounts of language learning lend themselves better to quantitative studies where narrowly defined research questions can be answered statistically. There have been a lot of such studies. Mackey (2007, 4–9) for example cites 75 of them published between 1995 and 2006, all designed to illuminate the relationship between interaction in an L2 and SLA. The conclusions tend to be enthusiastic in their depiction of this state of affairs, claiming “mounting evidence” for the Interaction Hypothesis (Mackey 2007) and even of the emergence of a serious theory of interaction, with attendant explanatory power (Gass and Mackey 2006)2. Along the way, however, the theoretical bedrock of Long’s hypothesis, which was given in some detail above, has been shifted. In these studies, encountering a problem in communication is no longer the key to a tailor-made focus-on-form at a psycholinguistically valuable moment. What has become the focus is interaction itself, pure and simple. In a footnote, Mackey (1999, 584) writes that there is no distinction to be made between negotiating incomprehensible input/output, and common or garden interaction, and she explicitly equates the terms “negotiated interaction“, “conversational interaction” and “negotiation“ because “They have often been used throughout the literature to refer to the same concept.” In shifting to a position in which interaction in general supports SLA, we see researchers less focussed on negotiation for meaning over problem utterances than focussed on other features of interaction, such as recasts, which can provide information about the L2 to a learner in the absence of any communication breakdown. Feedback in the form of recasting does not hang upon the psycholinguistically important moments of message failure, but moments where the teacher (and it is usually the teacher rather than another learner) chooses to treat an error by recasting it. Yet a problem with recasting is, as pointed out by Lyster and Ranta (1998), the difficulty of distinguishing something which is recast to provide an accurate model of the L2, from something which just expresses agreement or interest in the content of the message, or even from something which is just another way of saying the same thing. As they note, recasts often

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follow utterances which are not in any way wrong. These difficulties of interpretation are illustrated in the exchange reported by Kim and Han (2007). It could be that B has recast A’s utterance to draw attention to an incorrect form (i.e. the missing plural marker) but A seems to interpret it as an expression of interest in the content. A I did not know I hurt her feeling. B You hurt her feelings. A Yes, but I didn’t know (Kim and Han 2007, 283).

So a recast may not be seen as a signal that anything is wrong, unless the corrective function is explicitly signalled. And when we are in the realms of explicit signalling through, for example, metalinguistic prompting, we are moving away from meaning-focussed interaction and back towards language-focussed teaching, in which a teacher selects when and if to correct a mistaken form. This does not fit the Interaction Hypothesis reasoning where the overarching focus on meaning is only usefully interrupted when the meaning becomes unclear and a problem is noticed. Furthermore, the most frequently cited quantitative study that claims to demonstrate a link between interaction and SLA (Mackey 1999) has a confound between the dependent variable (development of question forms in English) and the independent variable (practice in question forms in English). In this study, practice in question forms stands as proxy for interaction itself, and shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that practice in something is linked to its development. It does not necessarily follow that interaction is linked to development in any other part of language. Even if research data were showing a more substantial body of evidence linking episodes of interaction to the acquisition of L2 knowledge, there would still be the criticism (Foster 1998; Nakahama et al. 2001) that negotiations for meaning, recasts or other language related episodes (Swain 2000) constitute only a small proportion of classroom interactions and do not necessarily mean that other classroom learning opportunities are absent or without value. I would add that if interaction is the key route to development of knowledge of an L2, then logically a learner needs an absolutely immense amount of it, given how much knowledge any one language comprises, and this is never going to be available to classroom learners. To sum up, it is uncontroversial to assert that knowledge of an L2 can be gained through interaction. There is no research to show that it cannot. We do have to recognise however that the redundancy of many grammatical forms allows meanings to be successfully transmitted through inaccurate or partially incomprehensible language, and this is surely not

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helpful to SLA. Equally, to assert that knowledge of an L2 cannot be obtained through non-interactional routes (such as listening or reading, cognitive reasoning or direct explanations) is something for which there is no evidence, and which surely goes against the experience of every learner who has ever listened to or read in or reflected on the language. The claim that knowledge is gained in an especially useful way through interaction is theoretically interesting from both sociocultural and cognitive perspectives, but requires more evidence than we have at present. Indeed, Gass and Mackey (2006) have explicitly warned that the endorsement of an “interaction approach” in pedagogy is not yet justified.

5. The place of interaction in language teacher training and assessment English Foreign Language teaching (EFL) in the UK is characterised by lively classrooms with students interacting in groups and a roaming teacher dropping by to monitor, guide, and explain when called upon. Rows of desks are scarcely to be tolerated. This is because teachers are trained to avoid lock-step lessons and sage on stage explanations. This is not a bad thing. There are, as we noted above, entirely uncontroversial benefits to using small group work in language lessons: learners feel less embarrassed about using the L2, are less fearful of making mistakes, get more varied practice in speaking and listening, and can have individual attention from the teacher where and when they ask for it. But there seems to be an assumption that learners who are interacting are developing their skills and gaining L2 knowledge, while those who are being quiet are doing something less valuable. Teacher-training orthodoxy has taken the idea of the benefits of L2 interaction in such a direction that, to give just two examples, the following norms are regarded as best practice: 1. Peer-to-peer explanations give more learning possibilities than teacherto-class explanations. 2. Learners working out rules of the L2 among themselves leads to deeper and more integrated learning.

In many discussions I have had with EFL teachers over the years, these notions have come up time and time again, though as far I have been able to discover, no research evidence exist for either of them. Their justification seems to rest on the presumption that learner-to-learner interaction is “better” than teacher-to-learner interaction. In my own experience, these beliefs can take a very firm grip; some of my master’s

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degree students from a teaching background have taken a lot of convincing even to reflect on them. Sadly, this does not surprise me. To be granted their initial qualification to teach, and then pass their regular in-service class inspections, teachers under training or observation must play safe by minimising teacher-to-class talk and maximising learner-to-learner talk. Their job, and their institution’s reputation, rest on getting good feedback in quality control. To avoid being criticised for using whole-class, teacherfronted activities in which they talk while the class listens, and because they do not know the exact point at which an inspector will decide that sufficient teacher-talk has become too much teacher-talk, teachers under observation organise things such that learner-to-learner interaction is paramount. The importance of active learner participation is clearly discernible in the published literature of the British Council, one of the most prestigious language school accreditation bodies in the UK: The inspectors.... check that the teachers are using up-to-date teaching methods and materials, that the students know what they are supposed to be learning…..that they are actively participating in the class, and that learning is really taking place. (http://www.britishcouncil.org/accreditation-what-we-check.pdf)

For a researcher, this raises many questions. If the students in the class know what they are supposed to be learning, does that not contradict the main thrust of the Interaction Hypothesis by which individual, incidental and implicit learning is key? Why should only “actively participating” students be deemed to be the ones who are learning? How do we know that the others are really not learning anything? Cannot a learner participate enthusiastically and yet learn nothing? And how does any inspector who is watching a class know for sure that learning is “really taking place”? (Such a conclusion would require an exhaustive research study.) Moreover, what exactly are up-to-date methods, and how do we know they are always better than a more dated one? At the heart of this lies the question of what language classroom interaction is valuable for: gaining knowledge or developing skill in using that knowledge. The cognitive Interaction Hypothesis is concerned with the former, and how it is best served when an incidental focus on form during meaning-focussed interaction allows the learner to notice a feature of L2, such as a word or grammatical morpheme, and potentially to acquire it. The sociocultural model is also concerned with knowledge, claiming that through the assistance of an interlocutor the learner is enabled to use a specific feature of the L2 which is not yet part of their L2

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knowledge, and potentially to make it part of the L2 knowledge. But the value of L2 interaction cannot only be about providing new knowledge; it is also about practice in using existing knowledge so that it can be accessed and deployed with greater fluency. For developing fluency, there is surely no substitute for speaking and listening. For gaining knowledge, research is not currently able to say that there is no substitute for an incidental focus on form or a ZPD. A teacher-led explanation may in many circumstances do the job just as well. It is always good to have empirical evidence for professional best practice, even though designing research studies that can reliably evaluate teaching methodology is difficult. Nevertheless, as teacher trainers and inspectors have a great deal of influence over teaching practice, it would be useful to find answers to two questions: Can learners gain knowledge in an L2 when not engaged in interaction? Is knowledge gained in interaction qualitatively different (better, deeper, more integrated) than language knowledge developed in another way, such as by solitary reading or listening to an explanation from a teacher? Without evidence, we are holding teachers to a standard that cannot be justified by anything other than a pedagogic zeitgeist.

6. Endnote A teacher standing in front of a whiteboard on which she has written a grammatical paradigm or a vocabulary list, and who is talking to a group of learners sitting in a row facing her, with maybe one of them putting up his hand to answer a display question, is not necessarily doing things wrong, though she would probably not get a good report from a British Council inspector. We cannot conclude that no learning, or the wrong kind of learning, is taking place here just because the learners are passive consumers and not active discoverers through interaction. This is not to advocate that all desks go back in rows and teachers take up their sage on stage role. I am saying that while humans can probably gain insights into an L2 in all sorts of ways—and this should not come as a surprise because our species are the best learners on the planet— the role of interaction does not have to crowd out the role of anything else in language development. Increasing fluency in L2 listening and speaking requires practice in interaction, doubtless. But it remains doubtful that incidental discoveries of L2 knowledge during interaction are sufficient vehicles for language development. Given the obvious practical difficulties that pedagogy has in meeting with student (customer) expectations in limited classroom time, we should be able to trust teachers to know what to

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provide in the form of a mixed diet of passive reception, passive perception and active production.

Bibliography Chomsky, Noam. 1959. “Review of Verbal Behaviour by B.F. Skinner.” Language 35:26-58. Allwright, Richard. 1984. “The Importance of Interaction in Classroom Language Teaching.” Applied Linguistics 5:156-171. British Council. Accessed January 2013, www.britishcouncil.org/accreditation-what-we-check.pdf. Donato, Richard. 1994. “Collective Scaffolding in Second Language Learning.” In Vygotskyan Approaches to Second Language Research, edited by James P. Lantolf and Gabriela Appel, 33-56. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Foster, John. 1972. Discovery Learning. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Foster, Pauline. 1998. “A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning.” Applied Linguistics 19:1-23. Foster, Pauline and Amy Ohta. 2005. “Negotiation for Meaning and Peer Assistance in Classroom Language Tasks.” Applied Linguistics 26:402-430. Gass, Susan M. and Alison Mackey. 2006. “Input, Interaction and Output in SLA.” In Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction, edited by Bill VanPatten and Jessica Williams, 175-199. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Jordan, Geoff. 2004. Theory Construction in Second Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Harmer, Jeremy. 1983. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London and New York: Longman. Hedge, Tricia. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kim, Jeong Hye and Zhao Hong Han. 2007. “Recasts in Communicative EFL Classrooms: Do Teacher Intent and Learner Interpretation Overlap?” In Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition: A Collection of Empirical Studies, edited by Alison Mackey, 269-297. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krashen, Steven. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London and New York: Longman. Lenneberg, Eric H. 1967. The Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley.

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Long, Michael. 1983 “Native Speaker/Non-native Speaker Conversation and the Negotiation of Comprehensible Iinput.” Applied Linguistics 4:126-141. —. 1996. “The Role of the Linguistic Environment in Second Language Acquisition.” In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by William K. Ritchie and Tej K. Bhatia, 413-68. San Diego: Academic Press. Lyster, Roy and Leila Ranta. 1997. “Corrective Feedback and Learner Uptake.” Studies in Second Language Acquistion 19:37-66. Mackey, Alison. 1999. “Input, Interaction and Second Language Development: an Empirical Study of Question Formation in ESL. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21:557-587. —. ed. 2007. Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition: A Collection of Empirical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nakahama, Yuko, Tyler, Andrea and Leo Van Lier. 2001. “Negotiation of Meaning in Conversational and Information Gap Activities: A Comparative Discourse Analysis.” TESOL Quarterly 35:377-405. Nunan, David. 1991. Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook for Teachers. New York: Prentice-Hall International. Ohta, Amy. 2001. Second Language Acquisition Processes in the Classroom: Learning Japanese. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schmidt, Richard. 1983. “Interaction, Acculturation and the Acquisition of Communicative Competence”. In Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition, edited by Nessa Wolfson and Elliot Judd, 13774. Rowley, Mass. Newbury House. Schmidt, Richard. 1994. “Deconstructing Consciousness in Search of Useful Definitions for Applied Linguistics.” AILA Review 11:11-26. Swain, Merill. 1985. “Communicative Competence: Some Roles of Comprehensible Input and Output in Its Development.” In Input and Second Language Acquisition, edited by Susan M. Gass and Carolyn G. Madden, 235-53. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. —. 2000. “The Output Hypothesis and Beyond: Mediating Acquisition through Dialogue.” In Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, edited by James P. Lantolf, 97-114. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky, Lew. 1986 .Thought and Language, revised and edited by Alex Kozulin. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

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Weaver, Robert and Jiang Qi. 2005. “Classroom Organisation and Participation: College Students’ Perceptions.” The Journal of Higher Education 76:570-601.

Notes 1

Moving from an earlier position in 1981 in which modified interaction was ‘necessary and sufficient’ for SLA (p. 275). 2 In the view of Geoff Jordan (2004), the IH occupies a limited domain and leaves untouched most of the questions relating to the SLA process.

SECTION THREE SOUND PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION SKILLS

CHAPTER NINE THE ASSESSMENT OF PREPARED TALKS: INTERFACE BETWEEN SPEAKING AND PRONUNCIATION MARTA NOWACKA

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to examine the relationship between the skill of speaking and one of its sub-skills, which is pronunciation. The analysis is based on recorded material in the form of a prepared talk given by twenty-one college students of the second and third year and their subsequent written answers to a questionnaire. Apart from the teacher assessment of the participants’ performance, the students were asked to self-evaluate their own recording in search of the aspects for correction. The survey’s task was to make students reflect upon their performance during the prepared talk and to give them guidelines for phonetic improvement. We also intended to investigate the reasons for the participants’ phonetic failure or success and their strengths and weaknesses as presenters. In general, the results of this study suggest that according to the participants a prepared talk is regarded as a useful tool for practising and assessing both the skill of speaking and pronunciation. However, the findings also point to the fact that students should be sensitized to their own responsibility for the way they speak and sound since some of them lack the essential know-how and tend to shift the duty onto the institution.

1. Introduction One of the first matters a teacher of phonetics should decide on is the goals of teaching English pronunciation to a given group of learners. What is obvious is that the focus of pronunciation training depends on the kinds

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of students we work with, e.g. whether they are to be specialists in the field of the English language or business people who need to use English at work. The primary dichotomy one is faced with is between aiming at intelligibility and reducing the amount of foreign-accentedness in speech. Wells (2008, 109) expresses it in the following way: … my prioritizing recommendations for the teaching of English pronunciation in an EFL/EIL context would be: x to concentrate on the matters that most impede intelligibility; while encouraging fluency and confidence; x not to neglect the need to interact with NSs; arguably, we also need to educate the NSs; x to exploit the findings of contrastive analysis to help pinpoint likely areas of difficulty. (Wells 2008,109).

What Wells adds in his listing is contacts with native speakers of English which, although they are believed to be limited in Jenkins’ (2000) English as a Lingua Franca approach, cannot be denied in every day communication worldwide. Since participants of my study are college students who are likely to become teachers of English, it therefore seems appropriate to take care of all of the abovementioned aspects in their phonetic training and to, firstly, focus on their intelligibility; secondly, prepare them for interaction with native speakers, i.e. sensitizing them to the perceptive needs of native listeners and interlocutors; and thirdly, to work on their phonetic accuracy, taking into consideration the gravity of L1 based phonetic errors. Therefore, apart from the usual corrective training with a focus on a selected aspect of English phonetics, whether it is a correct rendition of two plosive clusters or implementing aspects of connected speech such as assimilation, elision or smoothing etc., we occasionally shift the focus of attention to a more creative and coherent fragment of speech which in this study is a prepared talk. What we hope to achieve is the student’s individual work with the main focus on communication; however, intertwined with a conscious effort aimed at being clearly understood and phonetically accurate. Wells’ (2008) abovementioned suggestion of applying the findings of contrastive analysis to help learners with problematic phonetic areas should not be too difficult to follow. The major features of a Polish accent in English have been thoroughly described by Sobkowiak (2001). Moreover, pronunciation priorities for Polish learners of English and other pronunciation-related issues in research focus have been summed up by Szpyra-Kozáowska (2008) and Pawlak (2010). In general, in the

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contemporary phonetic literature the focal point seems to be on suprasegments, which are frequently claimed to be the most important aspects for communication. Other, more traditional, research centres on sole segments or the interplay of both segments and suprasegments (Nowacka 2008). In the current study, which to some extent resembles diagnostic feedback, we primarily aspire to assess pronunciation and speaking but we also intend to examine both sounds and connected speech elements together with the content and the form of a talk. In this study we also intend to consider other elements such as the lexical familiarity of the items tested or pronunciation of individual words. Shockey (2003), in her work on perception of casual speech, admits that lexical knowledge plays a role in information processing. Thus during the individual presentation students playing the role of listeners and assessors would work on perception of speech and should hopefully find it easier to decipher unclear forms of some words once they know the topic of the talk. The aim of the peer evaluation included in this study is also to prepare the students for their future role as assessors of spoken language. Peer- and teacher-evaluation would draw the presenter’s attention to the correct rendition of mispronounced words. Moreover, Szpyra-Kozáowska and Stasiak (2010) argue that learning the pronunciation of whole words whose distortion might lead to communicative problems should be a part of phonetic instruction. Therefore, our post-presentation enumeration of the mispronounced words, which aims at awareness-raising, may result in future correct enunciations of these words among these speakers. The issue which has yet to be considered when one is to assess any language skill, pronunciation included, is whether to apply the impressionistic or the analytic approach to testing. Szpyra-Kozáowska et al. (2004; 2005) present a thorough examination of these two approaches to pronunciation testing. According to them, holistic/global assessment, which is usually expressed in terms of a mark or a grade, entails an impression-formed evaluation of the learner’s overall performance, which makes reference to intelligibility and the amount of strain the pronunciation puts on the listener. On the other hand, in analytic/atomistic assessment specific aspects of the learners’ performance are evaluated separately. Szpyra-Kozáowska et al. (2004, 139) observe that the holistic and atomistic methods of testing pronunciation …both deserve to be employed in the language classrooms …The atomistic approach can be regarded as more objective and reliable, and is particularly well-suited for diagnostic purposes…Holistic testing, on the other hand, …is invaluable in assessing the overall impression, the intelligibility of the learner’s speech and other aspects of his pronunciation which cannot be

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easily expressed by means of definite, clear-cut criteria (SzpyraKozáowska et al. 2004, 139).

In the present examination we include both forms of evaluation. In the questionnaire we rely on holistic assessment in the form of a grade; however, in the post-presentation feedback stage we make use of an analytic listing of phonetic errors. Another aspect that ought to be emphasized is the fact that an oral presentation gives each student a chance to deliver a presentation in English in front of others, helps them to deal with or overcome stress and prepares them for future performances. Henderson (2008, 267), who based her study on oral presentations, stresses the need to rehearse a lexically dense, written text. One finding of her study is that the participants felt more comfortable with their 15-20 minute rehearsed monologues than with speaking spontaneously. In addition, she notes that awareness-raising influenced in a positive way such suprasegmental aspects as pace, speech rate and word stress patterns in the speech of her subjects. She observes that: When a speaker is lacking in confidence or nervous, being able to proactively prepare for such a situation is an important motivational factor because it can increase the perceived chances of overall success. When a speaker rehearses with the aim of reducing listeners’ cognitive load, rather than just to feel more comfortable pronouncing certain words, their attention is focused beneficially on the interactional nature of a presentation.

2. The study 2.1. Aims of the study The primary aims of the study were: – to assess students’ phonetic performance and speaking on the basis of the prepared talk; – to give the students a chance to self-evaluate their own performance by means of recording and post-presentation questionnaire; – and to check if there is any correlation between pronunciation and speaking. On the other hand the secondary aims were: – to find out what the participants have learnt about their own speaking and pronunciation from the presentation; – to see how they prepared for the prepared talk.

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2.2. Method Here, we discuss the participants of this study, instruments which we applied such as a prepared talk and a questionnaire and the procedure we used. 2.2.1. Participants In the academic year 2011/2012, twenty-one college students of the second (12) and third year (9) took part in the study, which was to a certain extent an example of a phonetic diagnosis. 57% the second year students outnumbered the third year ones (43%) by 14%. Female subjects (71%) constituted the majority of the questioned as opposed to 29% male students. The self-assigned level of proficiency in English was distributed according to the year of study, i.e. the majority of the second-year respondents opted for the advanced level (65%), whereas proficiency advancement was selected by the largest group of the third-year respondents (35%). The average age of the questioned was 22 years. There were no statistically significant differences in that respect. However, the length of learning English differed among the subjects, with the average value of 10 years. The shortest mentioned period pointed to 5 and the longest to 15 years; the 23.5 % variation coefficient means that the group is not uniform with regard to the length of learning English, the variable that we did not control for. 2.2.2. Instruments: prepared talk and questionnaire The main research instruments used to obtain the data for the present study were a recording of a prepared talk and the follow-up questionnaire. Prepared talk When it comes to the second year students, their presentations were related to the topics of their speaking class, therefore a distinctly varied range of tried and tested speaking topics was in evidence, e.g. abortion, addiction, advertising, anorexia and bulimia, beauty pageants, capital punishment, cosmetic surgery, Easter, emigration, GMO, modern wars, surrogates/in vitro, etc. On the other hand, the talks prepared by the third year students, performed during the seminar class, were summaries of the linguistics articles which students were supposed to cover for their Bachelor’s exam at the University of Rzeszów. Therefore in the majority of cases the content of their presentation was much more challenging with more advanced vocabulary. To give just a few examples, they concerned:

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lexical semantics, semantic change, word formation, euphemism and dysphemisms, loanwords etc. There was no set uniform form of a presentation, however, each of them was supposed to define, exemplify and sum up a selected issue, making note of reference materials. Questionnaire The questionnaire consisted of four major parts. In addition to the sole examination of the skill of speaking and pronunciation (part 2 below) this questionnaire inquired about: – firstly, the respondents’ preferences for the choice of native or nonnative variety of English as well as their phonetic self-education; – secondly, the evaluation of the skill of speaking and pronunciation in a prepared talk and the way of implementing their phonetic knowledge in practice as well as introspection of the phonetic preparation for a prepared talk; – thirdly, assessment of their speaking skill and pronunciation in general (their most challenging components); – and eventually, the appreciated laboratory techniques and the existence or lack of their personal phonetic model. Part 2 of the questionnaire form, which is included in the Appendix, is discussed for the purposes of this article. The respondents were asked to answer both closed and open questions. 2.2.3. Procedure In the summer term 2011/2012 second and third year students were obliged to present their speech in front of the group during their laboratory or seminar class. The length of the presentations varied. Second year talks were shorter, between 5 and 10 minutes, while third year presentations lasted between fifteen and thirty minutes. What these performances had in common was that participants were to deliver their material from memory, with occasional reliance on the written version. During each presentation, all other participants acting as listeners were supposed to make notes regarding individual components of speech such as content, accuracy and fluency. They acted as assessors and were asked to formulate both positive and critical comments with regard to each presenter’s performance. In detail, they were obliged to suggest places for a student’s phonetic and oral improvement such as mispronunciations of words, wrong rendition of certain sounds, lack of eye contact or absence of certain set components of a talk such as failure to indicate references or a summary. All the prepared talks were recorded by means of a digital speech recorder in a wave format

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and then they were performed to the whole class and sent to the individual students for a closer analysis. After the presentations, the participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire which focused on their preparation for the prepared talk and their evaluation of the usefulness of this task for the improvement of speaking skills and pronunciation. In addition the respondents were also asked some other pronunciation-related questions which are discussed in detail in the next section.

2.3. Results and discussion The results presented below are threefold. First, they concern all the participants’ self-evaluation on the basis of the questionnaire and then, they include a case study, which is the teacher’s phonetic evaluation of two selected participants: a linguistically talented learner and a poor performer. The discussion finishes with some statistical analysis examining correlations between pronunciation and the speaking skill. 2.3.1. The self-evaluation: questionnaire results In this section responses to closed questions are discussed as first and they are followed by a summary regarding open-ended questions. Closed questions The questionnaire designed for the purpose of this study consisted of eight closed questions (cf. Appendix). Two questions asked the respondents about the usefulness of oral presentations for practicing speaking and pronunciation respectively. Here three options of Yes; I don’t know; No were available in the answers. The next two required the subjects to evaluate their speaking and pronunciation respectively with reference to their presentation. The grades, on a seven point grade scale, ranged from fail (2) to excellent (6), i.e. (2 / 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5 / 6). We also wanted to know if the subjects felt that their English pronunciation benefited from this presentation and if they attempt to put the acquired phonetic knowledge into practice. Detailed answers to the latter questions were expected in the form of markings on a list. Eventually, the respondents were asked to tick true statements, out of twenty, about their preparation for the presentation and about presentation analysis afterwards. Figure 9–1 shows that 67% of the questioned regard oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing the skill of speaking, while the remaining

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19% are of the opposite opinion and 14% don’t have any stand on that statement.

Figure 9–1. Question 1: Do you regard the oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing SPEAKING?

Responses to question 3, in which the subjects were asked to evaluate their speaking with reference to their presentation, yield the following results: 40% of the respondents opt for a “good” grade, 25% choose a grade “three and a half” and yet another quarter votes for “a four and a half” mark with the remaining 5% assigning a satisfactory and a very good mark, respectively. Figure 9–2 summarises these results.

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Figure 9–2. Question 3: Evaluate, please, your SPEAKING with reference to your PRESENTATION.

As presented in Figure 9–3, the question “Do you regard the oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing PRONUNCIATION?” is answered positively by 81% of the subjects. 14% mark the “I don’t know” option and the rest (5%) do not find the prepared talk useful for the improvement of their pronunciation.

Figure 9–3. Question 4: Do you regard the oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing PRONUNCIATION?

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The grades the students assign to themselves with respect to pronunciation in their prepared talk are on the whole high (cf. Figure 9–4). 40% self-evaluate their phonetic performance as “good”, 35% as “plus good”, 15% mark the “plus satisfactory” option and 10% choose a “satisfactory” grade for themselves. Standard deviation of 0.5 and the 12.2 % variation coefficient means that the group is homogenous in that respect.

Figure 9–4. Question 6: Evaluate, please, your PRONUNCIATION with reference to your PRESENTATION

In general the responses to question 7, demonstrated in Figure 9–5 below, suggest that the majority of the respondents (86%) believe that their pronunciation benefited from this presentation, 5% deny this statement and 10% are of no opinion.

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Figure 9–5. Question 7: Did your English PRONUNCIATION benefit from this presentation?

Another finding is that 90% of the questioned say that they attempt to put into practice the phonetic knowledge that they acquired thanks to the presentation evaluation, and the remaining 10% split equally into those who do not confirm that statement and to those who do not have a stand on that (cf. Figure 9–6 below).

Figure 9–6. Question 8: Do you attempt to put the phonetic knowledge which you acquired thanks to the presentation evaluation into practice?

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Moreover, those participants who express their willingness to make use of the knowledge they gained during the presentation report applied some of the approaches listed in the questionnaire. More than 60% say that they aim at the correct pronunciation of words which they mispronounced (67%). The list of such words includes adulthood, aim, analysis, basis, broaden, chorus, English, hippopotamus, honour, meaning, other and womanizer. They also admit they repeat or repeated some of the words they mispronounced (62%). Among these erroneously rendered words there are e.g. advantages, broaden, considered, estimate, meaning, method, other, some, typology and vehicle. 33% of the respondents confirm that they pay attention to the accurate rendition of some sounds, e.g. /d‫ݤ‬/, / ‫ݞ‬/ or / ‫ݜܫ‬/. A mere 19% state that they covered a practical chapter on their problematic aspect/-s in a phonetic coursebook. Here they point to their first year coursebook by MaĔkowska et al. (2009) and exemplify two segmental problems, i.e. COMMA (/ԥ/) and the contrast between FLEECE and KIT (i‫ ޝ‬vs. ܼ/). The same percentage of subjects (19%) report that they avoid pronouncing certain words, i.e. they substitute them with other equivalent terms, e.g. earlier with before, or yield with produce etc. 10% point to yet some other techniques, not included in the list and provide examples of the following words competitive, consist, determination, gracious and pageant. One of the aims of this study was to make the students think about their preparation of the presentation and their self-evaluation after delivering it. The respondents’ answers reveal the details of their pre-talk and post-talk work. The findings regarding this inquiry are presented in Table 9–1 and in Figure 9–8. To exemplify the most frequently mentioned categories, all subjects disclose that they checked pronunciation of some words in a dictionary, 90% declare that they practised their presentation beforehand by saying it aloud and 86% report listening to the recording of their performance. Furthermore, 71% say that they realized they used to mispronounce some words thanks to listening to the teacher’s and students’ comments on other students’ presentations. Here they mention, for example, adulthood, estimate and some. 62% of the questioned remark that they aimed at nativelike pronunciation while a mere 10% note that they only wanted to be understood/intelligible rather than nativelike. Moreover, 62% of the respondents wrote some words on the presentation text in transcription and prepared their own text on the basis of some materials. Surprisingly, 14% of the subjects, i.e. 3 students, say that before delivering the presentation they recorded themselves and then listened and analyzed the recording with a focus on correctness and 10% (2 subjects) asked another student to listen to and to assess their performance.

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Figure 9–7. Question 8.1.: In what way do you put the phonetic knowledge from the presentation evaluation into practice?

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Figure 9–8. Question 9: Which statements are true about your preparation for the presentation and about presentation analysis afterwards?

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Table 9–1. Question 9: Which statements are true about your preparation to the presentation and about presentation analysis afterwards? No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Techniques: I checked pronunciation of some words in a dictionary. I practised my presentation beforehand by saying it aloud. After the presentation I listened to the recording of my performance. I realized I had mispronounced some words thanks to listening to the T’s and Ss’ comments on other students’ presentation? e.g. adulthood, estimate, some. I aimed at nativelike pronunciation. I wrote some words on my presentation text in transcription. I wrote my own text on the basis of some materials. I tried to memorize my presentation by heart. I timed myself. I make a conscious effort to pronounce the words I mispronounced during my presentation correctly. I marked the words which I should stress in each utterance. I listened to the recording of my presentation and wrote down some mispronounced words, sounds, etc. I recorded myself and then listened and analyzed it with a focus on correctness. I only wanted to be understood/intelligible rather than nativelike. Before delivering a presentation I asked another student to listen to me and to assess my performance, e.g. pronunciation of words, etc. I didn’t analyze my recording since I don’t believe my pronunciation will improve because of it. I didn’t prepare much. I just wanted to have it over. I marked pauses, time for breath. I delivered this presentation to a native English speaker and asked him/her to evaluate me. Others

% 100% 90% 86% 71% 62% 62% 62% 38% 29% 19% 15% 14% 14% 10% 10% 5% 5% 5% 0% 0%

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Open questions Our respondents were asked to answer five open questions, namely: – Do you regard the oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing speaking? Why? Why not? – What did you learn about your speaking skills from the students’ and the teacher’s comments after the presentation? Give examples. – Do you regard the oral presentation as a useful tool for practicing pronunciation? Why? Why not? – What did you learn about your pronunciation from the students’ and the teacher’s comments after the presentation? Give examples. – Did your English pronunciation benefit from this presentation? In what way? The discussion of the responses to the above-mentioned questions is presented in this section. On the whole most of the subjects regard the prepared talk as a useful tool for practicing speaking for a wide array of reasons (cf. Appendix point 1.1). To exemplify a few comments: firstly, it gives the subjects a chance to be evaluated by the teacher and the students on the basis of a longer stretch of speech and provides them with suggestions for improvement, e.g. [t]he teacher has a possibility to listen to me during the longer speech and suggests some change and checks whether someone is a good speaker. The recording of a student’s presentation is also valued since it allows for self-evaluation, [i]t gives an opportunity to listen to [the] student’s own presentation, analyze it and build up constructive criticism. The respondents frequently highlight the fact that they can confront their speaking skills and hear their own mistakes. A prepared talk is also reported to enable the students to perform in front of the public. On the other hand, the subjects who do not approve of ‘oral presentations’ for practicing speaking say it is stressful, not spontaneous and far from real-life communication because of its prepared character and lack of interlocutors. The majority of the respondents admit to learning a few facts about their speaking skills from the students’ and the teacher’s comments after the presentation. Some students praise themselves for being good presenters and are able to state what factors they regard as important, I think I managed to pass the message in a way that was understandable. I took into consideration, e.g. pace of speaking and loudness. These subjects with good speaking skills make it clear that although their performance was not devoid of, mostly minor, mistakes they could still be well-understood. One comment concerns the delivery of speech which proves beneficial for the subject, i.e. slowing down to have time to

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emphasize the most important points in the utterance. Some subjects put the blame on stress for their poor performance. Others explain that their problems involve, for example, too low a level of fluency. One individual points to the fact that learning the text by heart does not prove good and adds that next time they will make an attempt at speaking with their own words (cf. Appendix point 2). The results suggest that the respondents consider ‘oral presentation’ as a useful tool for practicing pronunciation because it: requires checking pronunciation in dictionaries and involves practicing it beforehand, gives them a chance to put this sub-skill into practice, makes them learn pronunciation of some unknown words and gives them immediate feedback from the students and the teacher (cf. Appendix point 4). The subjects seem to appreciate the fact that their pronunciation has been assessed by the students and the teacher (cf. Appendix point 5). They provide examples of the phonetic aspects they mispronounced. To begin with segments, in the articulation of vowels the following features were mentioned: changing TRAP (/æ/ and STRUT /‫ݞ‬/ into Polish /a/, the distinction between FLEECE and KIT (i‫ޝ‬/ vs. /ܼ/), pronouncing /i/ instead of KIT (/ܼ/), e.g. in English, image or kid, lack of schwa, i.e. applying strong vowels in unstressed syllables as well as shortening long vowels and/or giving them a Polish quality, e.g. changing FLEECE (i‫ޝ‬/) into Polish /i/. When it comes to consonants we could observe such elements as rhoticity and problems with both th sounds (/ș/ and /ð/, e.g. the substitution of /ð/ with /d/ in words such as other. Among suprasegments that should be improved by the individuals, wrong word stress and too rare a use of weak forms is suggested. The students also make a general remark that thanks to the prepared talk they learnt to pronounce certain words correctly, e.g. aim, basic with /s/ not with /z/ and knowledge with LOT but not with GOAT in the first syllable. One subject confesses to being aware of speaking with a strong Polish accent, and yet another says speaking slowly and more clearly would be advantageous for her pronunciation. In general they believe their English pronunciation benefited from the presentation in at least two general respects (cf. Appendix point 7.1.). They report taking notice of pronunciation of certain words and paying more attention to problematic sounds, e.g. COMMA, long vowels, FLEECE versus KIT contrast or the rendition of th.

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2.3.2. Case study: teacher’s phonetic evaluation of a linguistically talented and a poor performer Most of the phonetic mistakes that the subjects made were the result of negative phonetic transfer from Polish and constitute typical examples of interference from Polish into English. Since each student performed a different topic, mispronunciation of words varied from one student to another. In the classroom context individual participants presented their prepared talk to their classmates and received feedback from them and from the teacher just after the presentation in an open discussion. For the purpose of this presentation I am going to comment on the kinds of mistakes that were taken into account while evaluating the performances of two participants, i.e. a linguistically talented and a poor performer. Sample 1 Respondent 17 is an example of a linguistically talented performer. She is a third-year student, whose speaking was evaluated with a very good grade. On closer inspection her pronunciation, although it belongs to the best ones in the linguistic seminar class, still leaves some room for improvement; therefore if evaluated on its own it would receive a slightly lower mark of a plus good grade. The comments presented here refer to two excerpts of her speech which were demonstrated in the conference workshop. In her speech she can be congratulated on creating the impression of a spontaneous speaker and on maintaining a high level of accuracy. When it comes to phonetic elements, in general, her speech has very good suprasegments such as fluency, rhythm, tempo of speech, linking devices, intonation and loudness. On listening attentively, in search of points for improvement, several characteristic incorrect segmental features become noticeable, e.g. among vowels, frequent avoidance of COMMA, i.e. substituting it with a vowel represented by the letter in the spelling, e.g. in the place of the letter “a” a vowel /a/ could be heard in global, globalization, dominant and equivalent, national, AmericAnization, Indian, unequally and chairman. Vowel TRAP is replaced in her speech in two ways, i.e. it is either erroneously flattened to a DRESS-like vowel as in language or has a quality of Polish /a/ as in Afro or fact.1 KIT in some probably fossilized words is enunciated as /i/, e.g. activity, political and English. When it comes to consonants, the rendition of th as /d/ in there, this or in the2 occasional final devoicing of voiced obstruents, e.g. pronouncing /t‫ݕ‬/ in the place of /d‫ݤ‬/ in language and knowledge and /t/ in the place of /d/ in

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Poland are some minor aspects which could be worked on. These substitutions do not influence intelligibility; however, they are signs of a foreign-accent which, according to what the speaker says, is not her ideal since she aims at sounding native-like for aesthetic reasons. Her other mispronunciations involve words like increasingly rendered with /z/ in the place of “s”, various with BATH rather than SQUARE in the first syllable, aim with PRICE rather than FACE, process with LOT not with GOAT or women with FLEECE-like vowel instead of KIT. The subject has some infrequent problems with word stress placement which can be heard in COmputers, UNderstand, INdustrial, PHEomenon, eCOnomic or senSItivity. All in all, although her speech in not free from mispronunciation, the general grade for her speaking in a prepared talk was very good. My evaluation of the speaker’s pronunciation would yield a lower result in the category of good/plus good. Her mostly segmental offences did not affect my general understanding of the text. Her fluent prosodic and continuous speech features overwhelmed her segmental mistakes and allowed her to be classified as a very good presenter. The latter finding agrees with the results of Birdsong (2007), who explores the relationship between the segmental and global level of phonetic analysis and states that it is unidirectional in the sense that nativelike performance at the suprasegmental level predicts nativelike performance at the level of individual sounds, but not the other way round. In other words, only students with good suprasegmental pronunciation, which is usually supported by good segmental phonetics, can be perceived as proficient speakers. Sample 2 The presentation by Respondent 13 places him among the less talented phonetic performers and linguistically weak students. He obtained a satisfactory grade for both his speaking and pronunciation. Respondent 13 is a second-year student whose pronunciation is strongly accented.3 In general his speech is intelligible but is delivered with a strong Polish accent in most phonetic features and is an example of typical ‘Polglish’ speech. Nearly all sounds the student produces have a Polish-like quality. To give a few examples, in vowels it is visible, in KIT rendered as Polish /i/ in popularity, security and sit; TRAP pronounced as Polish /a/ or /e/ in advertising and actions, or lack of COMMA in media, general or radical. Among consonants, /r/ is most conspicuous for its trilled quality, e.g. in grew, try and rhoticity in everywhere, advertising, and wear. /ð/ is persistently replaced by /d/ in there, that’s etc. The students’ speech is also characterized by frequent pauses and hesitations within a tone unit or even within a word, repetitions, lack of weak forms and common mispronunciation

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of words, e.g. the USA rendered as /ði ju‫ ޝ‬es ࡋaܼ/ or spelling pronunciation as in go pronounced with /o/ in the place of GOAT. The student’s inappropriate use of rising tones at the end of tone units in affirmative statements are another distinctive feature of his speech. To sum up, the above description of the students’ phonetic problems complies with Birdsong’s (2007) finding that the more problems with the sounds of a foreign language students have, the less likely they are to be good at suprasegments and the more foreign sounding they shall seem. 2.3.3. Statistical analysis On the basis of the respondents’ answers we aimed to look for some correlations between pronunciation and the speaking skill. Our tests confirmed the presupposed result, which is that with the increase of one’s confidence in one skill, confidence in another skill rises. This time we checked the correlation between the respondents’ selfassigned grade in speaking and pronunciation with reference to the presentation. The Rank Spearman correlation coefficient shows that there is a moderate correlation between the variables (p “godna”) and vowel insertion (e.g. “wstawaü” > “wystawaü”). With regard to vowels, many participants pointed to the problems of foreign speakers with the pronunciation of the so-called nasal vowels, spelt as and . In contemporary Polish there are no genuine nasal vowels and these letters are pronounced in a variety of ways, usually an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant, strictly depending on the context. The problematic cases involved the occurrence of and in word-final position and before fricatives, where Poles pronounce a mid oral vowel /e/ or /o/ and a nasal labio-velar glide.8 In many such instances the listeners pointed to excessive nasalization, i.e. the use of a nasal stop instead of an oral vowel and a nasal glide in such items as, for example, “wodĊ” /vodewѺ / ‘water, gen. sg.’ > “wodem,” “obowiązkowy” /obov’jowѺ skowᖥ/ ‘dutiful’ > “obowionzkowy,” “mĊĪem” /mewѺ ᢷem/ ‘husband, instr. sg.’ > “menĪem,” “robią” /rob’jowѺ / ‘they do’ > “robiom,” “ksiąĪka” /kᢎowѺ ᢭ka/ ‘book’ > “ksionĪka.” In other speakers’ samples the sounds in question were completely denasalized, e.g. “robią” /rob’jowѺ / ‘they do’ > “robio,” “mają” /majowѺ / ‘they have’ > “majo.” It is not clear whether the observed difficulties stem from the foreigners’ insufficient mastery of Polish spellingto-pronunciation rules9 or are articulatory in character. Furthermore, many listeners observed a common tendency in many foreign speakers to replace the high front centralized vowel /ᖥ/ (spelt as

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), absent in most languages, with the fully front /i/ and usually indicated it by employing phonetic spelling with the letter , e.g. “Krystyna” ‘Christine’ > “Kristina,” “przygotowuje” ‘(he) prepares’ > “psigotowuje,” “zalety” ‘strengths’ > “zaleti,” “wygodny” ‘comfortable’ > “wigodny,” “muzyka” ‘music’ > “muzika,” “medycyna” ‘medical science’ > “medicina.” It should be added that some words with such vowel substitution are cognates with equivalents in many other languages in which a high fully front vowel is employed. Prosodic issues were rarely mentioned in the participants’ answer sheets, which means that they mostly paid attention to segments. Two prosodic features, however, were often noted by the listeners and elicited some comments, namely the lack of fluency and the incorrect placement of word stress. Thus, whenever a given speaker made many pauses between words, it was pointed out by the respondents who also added a comment that “he/she doesn’t seem to understand what he/she is reading.” Several speakers employed stress rules of their native language and misstressed some words, e.g. “᦮wadĊ” ‘weakness, gen. sg.’ > “wa᦮dĊ”, “᦮wstawaj” ‘get up’ > “wsta᦮waj”, “ku᦮pili” ‘they bought’ > “᦮kupili.” Such cases were not very frequent, but they were immediately noted by the subjects supporting thus a common observation made in accent studies (e.g. Benrabah 1997) that stress errors constitute a serious irritant for native listeners. Furthermore, vowel length turned out to be problematic for some speakers, who, having long and short vowels in their native languages, often tended to lengthen vowels either in stressed syllables, e.g. “woodĊ” ‘water, gen. sg.,’ “noowe” ‘new,’ “wstaawaü” ‘to get up,’ “wczeeĞnie” ‘early,’ “Krystyyna” ‘Christine’ or in the items carrying nuclear (sentence) stress, e.g. “Pojechali do Warszawy pociąągiem” ‘they went to Warsaw by train.’ This was perceived by the listeners as the lengthening of words (“rozciąganie / przeciąganie wyrazów”) and was often indicated by doubling the vowel letters.10 2.2.2. Language-specific properties In this section we present the remaining phonetic properties of the experimental samples that were noted by the participants as their specific features. Common properties of accented Polish, discussed in 2.2.1., are not repeated here.

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x Russian-accented Polish The Russian-accented sample triggered many comments from the participants on both its segmental and suprasegmental properties. The majority of listeners noted the speaker’s realization of Polish prepalatals, i.e. /ᣐ, ᣌ, ᢎ, ᢷ/ as palatalized dentals, i.e. /t’, d’ s’, z’/ as well as palatalized pronunciation of the Polish lateral, e.g. “lubi” ‘(he) likes’ > “ljubi” and a frequent replacement of the voiced postalveolar fricative with a palatalized rhotic, e.g. “rzeka” ‘river’ > “r’eka.” Another striking consonantal property of the analysed sample is the use of the dental lateral in those cases where Modern Polish has the labio-velar glide, e.g. “Paweá” /pavew/ ‘Paul’ > /paveá/, “woáa” /vowa/ ‘(he) calls’ > /voáa/. With regard to vowels, many subjects observed the characteristic phonetic phenomena of vowel reduction in Russian, known as akan’e and ikan’e, applied by the speaker to some Polish words. The former consists in pronouncing the unstressed vowel /o/ as /a/, e.g. in “Kowalewska” ‘surname’ > “Kawaljewska,” “koledzy” ‘friends’ > “kaljedzy,” the latter in realizing unstressed /e/ as /i/, e.g. “wstaje” ‘(he) gets up’ > “wstaji.” Some prosodic properties of the Russian-accented sample were also noted by many Polish listeners. They observed a considerable lengthening of stressed vowels and shortening of the unstressed ones,11 which are consequences of the dynamic nature of Russian word stress. Furthermore, some participants pointed out several cases of the incorrect placement of stress by the Russian speaker, e.g. “᦮ona” ‘she’ > “a᦮na,” “᦮wstawaj” ‘get up’ > “wsta᦮waj.” All these prosodic features contribute to the impression of the accent under discussion as very melodious, which was the most frequently used descriptive term.12 x American-accented Polish The most striking perceptual features of the American-accented sample were the speaker’s problems with the Polish coronal obstruents and her inability to make a distinction between postalveolars and prepalatals, discussed in section 2.4.1.1. Also word-initial clusters proved difficult for her to pronounce, e.g. in “wstawaü” /fstavaᣐ/ ‘get up,’ “szczupáa” /᢭t᢭upwa/ ‘slim,’ “Ğniadanie” /ᢎᖪadaᖪe/ ‘breakfast.’ Many listeners also observed the speaker’s “different,” “strange” or “without vibrations” pronunciation of /r/, which is a retroflex approximant in American English, unlike the Polish alveolar trill. Moreover, Polish listeners indicated cases of replacing /y/ with /i/, e.g. “zalety” ‘strengths’ > “zaleti,” as well as problems with the pronunciation of nasal vowels. A frequent comment concerned the lengthening of stressed vowels.

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x Chinese-accented Polish While in the majority of their assessments Polish listeners paid attention to and commented mostly on the samples’ segmental features, in the case of the Chinese-accented speech they focused on its prosodic aspects. According to the participants, its most characteristic feature is the lack of fluency manifested through many pauses between syllables and words as well as flat, monotonous intonation. “She speaks like a robot” was one of the comments. The listeners also noted that “it is not clear which syllable is stressed.” This does not mean, however, that foreign segmental aspects of the sample passed unnoticed. Apart from the common problems with consonant clusters13 (e.g. in “wczeĞnie” /ft᢭eᢎᖪe/ ‘early,’ “dwadzieĞcia” /dvaᣌeᢎᣐa/ ‘twenty,’ “wstawaü” /fstavaᣐ/ ‘get up’), the coronal obstruents, /ᖥ/ and nasal vowels, the listeners pointed to the speaker’s difficulties with the velar fricative /x/ and the nontrilled pronunciation of /r/ (“she can’t pronounce /r/”). Moreover, the Chinese learner had problems with the pronunciation of words which contained the labio-velar glide and the voiced labio-dental fricative, e.g. “woáa” /vowa/ ‘(he) calls’ > /wova/, “Paweá” ‘Paul’ /pavew/ > /pawew/. x Italian-accented Polish The perceived phonetic properties of the Italian-accented sample are very much the same as in the majority of cases and include the softened pronunciation of postalveolars, and particularly numerous problems with consonantal clusters, e.g. in “krzesáo” /k᢭eswo/ ‘chair,’ “ksiąĪki” / kᢎowѺ ᢭k’i/ ‘books,’ “chciaáa” /xᣐawa/ ‘she wanted,’ “mnóstwo” /mnustfo/ ‘lots,’ “zgadza” /zgadza/ ‘(he) agrees.’ The listeners also noted frequent replacements of /ᖥ/ with /i/ and difficulties with the realization of nasal vowels. The most striking feature of the Italian speaker’s Polish pronunciation was his tendency to lengthen stressed vowels in many words and phrases, shown by the doubling of vowel letters in the following examples: “noowe mieszkaanie” ‘new flat,’ “prócz teego” ‘apart from that,’ “pokooje” ‘rooms,’ “stoolik” ‘small table,’ “duuĪy” ‘big.’ x German-accented Polish In addition to the common problems with the coronal consonants, consonant clusters, nasal vowels and /ᖥ/, the most frequently observed features of the German speaker’s pronunciation were the “strangely sounding” uvular /r/, the lengthening of some vowels and the incorrect placement of stress in several words. He also tended to use rising intonation where Poles would normally employ falling tones.

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x French-accented Polish The French speaker, just like the remaining recorded foreigners, softened the postalveolar obstruents and had problems with the majority of Polish consonant clusters, e.g. in “wzorzysty” /vzoᢷᖥstᖥ/ ‘patterned,’ “szczeka” /᢭t᢭eka/ ‘(he) barks,’ “szczery” /᢭t᢭erᖥ/ ‘frank,’ “twierdzi” /tf’jerᣌi/ ‘(he) claims.’ Moreover, the listeners were struck with the uvular pronunciation of the rhotic and many words with the incorrect final stress. x English-accented Polish The English-accented sample’s characteristic features, in the respondents’ opinion, include well-known problems with the coronal obstruents and consonantal clusters, e.g. in “ĞwiĊta” /ᢎf’jenta/ ‘holidays,’ “przygotowuje” /p᢭ᖥgotovuje/ ‘(he) prepares.’ Apart from that, the listeners observed the aspiration of fortis plosives described as “excessively emphatic,” “stressed,” or “spitting” pronunciation of /p, t, k/. Several participants noted also the English speaker’s tendency to clip many words and “eat up” vowels, which is nothing else than impressionistic descriptions of Vowel Reduction and his frequent use of schwa in unstressed positions, e.g. the underlined vowels in “do domu” ‘home,’ “kupili” ‘they bought,’ “biletów” ‘tickets, gen.’. The impression of clipped, nonfluent pronunciation was additionally strengthened by the speaker’s glottal reinforcement or replacement of syllable final voiceless plosives, e.g. in “Patrycja” ‘Patricia,’ “zwykáa” ‘ordinary.’ Finally, it was often pointed out that he ‘does not pronounce /r/’ in many words, e.g. “Ryszard” ‘Richard,’ “dworca” ‘railway station, gen. sg.’. Apparently, in such instances the speaker applied the English nonrhotic accents’ restriction on the occurrence of /r/ only before vowels. x Spanish-accented Polish No specific features of the Spanish-accented sample were provided by the participants in addition to the comments on the softened pronunciation of Polish coronals, problems with consonant clusters, e.g. in “chciaáa” /xᣐawa/ ‘she wanted,’ “krzesáo” /k᢭eswo/ ‘chair,’ “otrzymali” /ot᢭ᖥmal’i/ /ot᢭ᖥmal’i/ ‘they received,’ nasal vowels and /ᖥ/. It should be added that the Spanish speaker was assessed as having a small degree of a foreign accent, hence the scarcity of observations concerning this sample’s other features.

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2.2.3. Summary of the results Let us summarize the major phonetic properties of foreign-accented Polish perceived by the participants. They are listed in the table below. Table 11–2. Perceptual properties of foreign-accented Polish Consonants – softened (palatoalveolar) pronunciation of postalveolar obstruents; – palatoalveolar pronunciation of prepalatal Common obstruents; (most – no distinction frequent) between properties postalveolars and of foreignprepalatals; accented replacing them Polish with palatoalveolars; – problems with consonant clusters (frequent omission of some segments or vowel insertion) – replacing prepalatal obstruents with palatalized dentals; Russian– palatalized accented pronunciation of Polish the lateral; – replacing the labiovelar glide with the dark dental lateral American- – /r/ pronounced as a accented retroflex Polish approximant

Vowels

– incorrect pronunciation of orthographic nasal vowels (often denasalized or excessively nasalized); – frequent replacement of /ᖥ/ with /i/

– akan’e and ikan’e

Prosody

– incorrect placement of word-stress; – lack of fluency (frequent pauses); – lengthening of stressed vowels

– lengthening of stressed vowels and shortening of unstressed ones; – melodiousness – frequent lengthening of stressed vowels

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Chineseaccented Polish

– separation of syllables and words; – flat, monotonous intonation – considerable lengthening of stressed vowels – lengthening of some stressed vowels; – frequent use of rising intonation

– problems with /r/, /v/ and /x/

Italianaccented Polish Germanaccented Polish

– the use of the uvular trill

Frenchaccented Polish

– the use of the uvular trill

Englishaccented Polish

– aspiration of /p, t, k/; – absence of /r/ before consonants and word-finally

Spanishaccented Polish

– only common properties listed

– frequent final word stress – the use of Vowel Reduction

While the list of perceived phonetic properties of individual accents will certainly have to be modified when more samples of foreign speakers’ Polish are subject to evaluation, the common aspects of foreign-accented Polish summarized in the table above seem to be unquestionable as pedagogical priorities in the phonetic training of foreign learners of Polish.

3. Experiment 2 We shall now proceed to the presentation of the second experiment whose goal was to establish the relative salience to Polish listeners of the seven phonetic features which characterize the global perceptual foreign accent in Polish and which are listed in Table 11–2.14 Three of them pertain to consonants and include the softened (palatoalveolar)

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pronunciation of postalveolar obstruents, the palatoalveolar realization of prepalatal obstruents and problems with consonant clusters. Two vocalic properties concern the pronunciation of nasal vowels and the frequent replacement of /ᖥ/ with /i/. Finally, two perceptually most striking prosodic features of foreign accents that have been examined refer to the incorrect placement of word stress and lack of fluency.

3.1. Method Three samples of foreign-accented Polish were selected for the purposes of this experiment. They were recorded by three male speakers; one from Turkey (aged 25, who had been learning Polish for 7 months prior to the experiment), one from Italy (aged 62, who had been learning Polish for 8 months) and the last one from Brazil (aged 42, who had been living in Poland for 7 years). Their Polish pronunciation is characterized by the presence of all the global foreign accent features listed above. A diagnostic passage of 10 sentences was prepared in such a way as to include at least 10 occurrences of the problematic phonetic properties. The three speakers were asked to read these sentences and were individually recorded. In May 2012, 30 English Department students of Maria CurieSkáodowska University listened to the three samples described in 3.1. They were given answer sheets in which seven types of errors enumerated above were listed in a random order, together with some typical examples. Next to a given feature a five-point scale was provided in order for the participants to assess the gravity of the specified error type for the ease/difficulty of comprehending the speaker and/or the degree of irritation (annoyance) it caused in the listener. In other words, the students were to judge how much they were disturbed by specific pronunciation inaccuracies of foreign learners of Polish, where 1 = not important, not irritating at all and 5 = very important and very annoying. They were also encouraged to list and evaluate other phonetic features of the samples they found particularly striking, but this option was not employed by any of them.

3.2. Results and discussion Table 11–3 provides the experimental results with the mean assessment of the salience of a given feature. Let us recall that the higher the figure, the harsher the judgement.

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Table 11–3. Perceptual salience of 7 features of global foreign accent Features of global foreign accent palatoalveolar pronunciation of postalveolar obstruents lack of fluency palatoalveolar pronunciation of prepalatals mispronunciation of consonant clusters incorrect placement of word stress incorrect pronunciation of nasal vowels replacement of /ܺ/ with /i/

Mean 3.53 3.43 3.33 3.26 2.93 2.16 2.06

The data in Table 11–3 indicate that the features pertaining to consonants are found at the top, which means that they were assessed as more serious than the remaining ones. Two prosodic features are located in the middle, with the lack of fluency being perceived as a more serious irritant15 than the incorrect placement of word stress.16 The incorrect pronunciation of nasal vowels and the high front vowels are placed at the bottom of the table confirming thus the priority that should be given to consonants in the course of phonetic training. It should be added that while the participants were fairly consistent in their evaluations of consonant and vowel features, assigning 2-4 points in the former case and 1-3 in the latter, no such consistency was found with regard to the two prosodic properties whose evaluations included all points on the experimental scale. Thus, some judges found the lack of fluency and misplaced word stress very annoying while others considered the same features not irritating at all. It is not clear why such marked differences in the assessment of segmental and suprasegmental issues should occur.

4. Conclusion The results of the two experiments reported in this chapter provide answers to all the research questions formulated in the introduction. Thus, it appears that foreign-accented Polish, regardless of the speakers’ linguistic background, has similar perceptual properties, which allows us to claim that a phenomenon, termed here a global perceptual foreign accent in Polish, can be defined. It is characterized by the presence of the seven phonetic features provided in Table 11–2, which serve as the major cues of accentedness to Polish listeners and should consequently constitute pedagogical priorities in the phonetic training of foreign learners

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of Polish. Apart from these properties, language-specific accent features can also be isolated. Of the seven features under discussion those pertaining to consonants are perceptually most salient for the listeners. They are followed by prosodic inaccuracies and the incorrect realization of vowels, as shown schematically below, consonants > prosody > vowels These results run counter to the claim often found in accent studies (e.g. Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson and Koehler 1992; Boula de Mareuil and Vieru-Dimulescu 2006) that prosodic deviances matter more in accent perception than segmental deviances. In the case of accented Polish speech these are segments and, more specifically, consonants that are perceptually most salient.17 Consequently, a common recognition of Polish as a consonantal language, finds further support in the perception of nonnative speech. Needless to say, the presented results should be regarded as preliminary in nature and more experimental evidence, which takes into account different factors affecting foreign accent perception,18 is required to support the validity of the above conclusions.

Bibliography Anderson-Hsieh, Janet, Ruth Johnson and Kenneth Koehler. 1992. “The Relationship between Native Speaker Judgements of Nonnative Pronunciation and Deviance in Segmentals, Prosody and Syllable Structure.” Language Learning 42:529-555. Boula de Mareuil, Philippe and Bianca Vieru-Dimulescu. 2006. “The Contribution of Prosody to the Perception of Foreign Accent.” Phonetica 63:247-267. Benrabah, Mohamed. 1997. “Word-stress: A Source of Unintelligibility in English.” IRAL 35:157-65. Flege, James E., Munro, Murray J. and Ian R. A. MacKay. 1995. “Factors Affecting Strength of Perceived Foreign Accent in a Second Language.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 97:31253134. Fraser, Helen. 2000. Coordinating Improvements in Pronunciation Teaching for Adult Learners of English as a Second Language. Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

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Ladefoged, Peter and Ian Maddieson. 1996. The Sounds of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. Piske, Thorsten, Ian R. A MacKay and James E. Flege. 2001. “Factors Affecting Degree of Foreign Accent in an L2: A Review.” Journal of Phonetics 29:191-215. Szpyra-Kozáowska, Jolanta and Marek Radomski. 2012. “The Perception of Foreign-accented Polish – a Pilot Study.” Research in Language 10:97-110. Szpyra-Kozáowska, Jolanta. Forthcoming. “Czesze sze bardzo. Polszczyzna z obcym akcentem i jej percepcja.” Szpyra-Kozáowska, Jolanta and Marek Radomski. Forthcoming. a. “Foreign Accents in Polish. Non-native Speakers’ and Native Listeners’ Views.” Szpyra-Kozáowska, Jolanta and Marek Radomski. Forthcoming. b. “When People and Accents Meet. Poles’ Attitudes to Foreign-Accented Polish and its Users.”

Notes 1

As pointed out by various authors (e.g. Piske et al. 2001), accent evaluations depend on how heavy a given accent is. 2 We were not always successful in this respect and while extreme cases of exceptionally good and very poor Polish pronunciation were rejected, the experimental samples cannot be claimed to be uniform in terms of their degree of accentedness. 3 In our previous experiment, reported in Szpyra-Kozáowska and Radomski (2012), in which the same samples were employed, 60 secondary school pupils also listed the phonetic properties of accented speech. There were no significant differences in the data supplied by the two groups of participants except for the phonetic accuracy of descriptions provided by the Polish Department students, as opposed to more impressionistic comments of secondary school pupils. 4 In Szpyra-Kozáowska and Radomski (2012) we demonstrate that in the case of Polish listeners the influence of learning a foreign language on the perception of a particular accent is negligible. 5 In this study we report only the experimental results concerning the perceived phonetic properties of accented speech. 6 Needless to say, some participants listed several non-Polish phonetic properties of the experimental samples and/or provided numerous examples of mispronunciations while others mentioned only 2-3 such features. In this chapter we discuss only those aspects of pronunciation which appeared in several answer sheets and omit those ones which were found in isolated cases only. 7 Postalveolar obstruents are transcribed here as retroflexes, as suggested by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996).

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Word finally is often denasalized and pronounced as an oral /e/. It should be remembered that the collected samples involved reading a passage. 10 It might also be the case that some speakers put a larger amount of emphasis on stressed syllables than is customary in Polish, which led to the impression of lengthened vowels. 11 This feature was often perceived and described as “the clipping of words.” 12 The participants used the term “Ğpiewna wymowa” ‘lit. singing pronunciation.’ 13 The Chinese speaker often employed vowel insertion to break some word-initial consonant clusters, e.g. “wstawaü” > “wystawaü,” “Krystyna” > “Kyrystyna.” 14 We have omitted the lengthening of stressed vowels which was mentioned in many evaluations since although very frequent, it cannot be viewed as common as the remaining features. 15 It should be added that the results pertaining to the discussed prosodic features might be caused by the fact that while all three speakers displayed lack of fluency, only one of them (i.e. the speaker from Brazil) had problems with the correct placement of word stress. 16 By the incorrect placement of stress we mean that the speakers employed stress rules from their native languages in pronouncing some Polish words. 17 It should be added, however, that out of the eight examined samples, seven were produced by speakers of stress languages and only one by a speaker of a tone language (Mandarin). Thus, in seven cases we can talk about structural similarities between the native languages of the speakers and the listeners. As is well-known, structural similarities and differences between languages affect the perception of foreign accent features. 18 See, for example, Flege et al. (1995), Piske et al. (2001). 9

CHAPTER TWELVE PRIORITIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION TO POLES: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SCOTTISH NATIVE LISTENERS AGNIESZKA BRYàA-CRUZ

Abstract The chapter presents the pedagogical implications of an empirical study on the perception of Polish-accented English by Scottish listeners. The survey elicited the participants’ evaluative responses towards a sample of Polish-accented speech with respect to its accentedness and annoyance triggered in the listeners. The goal of the study was to establish those phonetic features which contribute most to each of the above parameters as well as to explore how the judges’ linguistic variety influences their evaluations. Having done that, it was possible to draw conclusions with regard to phonetic priorities in the teaching of English to Poles who intend to interact with Scottish native speakers.

1. Introduction There is ample evidence (both empirical and real life) exemplifying native speakers’ bias against foreign accented speech. Foreign accent tends to be associated with lower intelligibility, incompetence and overall negative evaluations of a non-native speaker’s personality (Kalin and Rayko 1980; Flege 1987; Lippi-Green 1997; Ingram 2009). Numerous studies have tried to isolate phonetic features which contribute most to the impression of foreign accent in English (e.g. Flege and Hammond 1981; Flege 1988; Magen 1998; Jilka 2000). Compiling a list of priorities for teaching English pronunciation to foreigners is still hard since the studies

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conducted so far on various L1s present us with plenty of evidence which does not always overlap. Previous empirical research has also demonstrated that errors which are identical to a pronunciation widespread among native speakers of a relevant community are deemed more acceptable and are judged less severely (Johansson 1978). This was the case with Scottish native speakers evaluating Swedish-accented English. They were much more inclined to accept monophthongised realisation of the diphthong /ԥᖲ/, which can be accounted for by the fact that they themselves use a similar substitution. Johansson (1975, 75) suggests that the Edinburgh judges “would be less certain of the phonetic norm” for the RP vowel and would thus “naturally more seldom reject a particular pronunciation as foreign”. Interestingly, a study conducted on the perception of Dutch-accented English (den Doel 2005) provided some counterexample to the notion of “accent familiarity” which assumes more leniency on the part of judges while rating errors identical to a pronunciation characteristic of their own variety. The native speakers of Irish English and Standard Scottish English evaluated the lack of distinction between /ᖲ/ and /ᖲ:/ more severely than other native speakers participating in the experiment even though they do not maintain the contrast either. The aim of this chapter is to present the findings of an experimental research study on the perception of Polish-accented English by Scottish listeners. As argued by Derwing and Munro (2005, 379), “empirical studies are essential in improving our understanding of the relationship between foreign accent and pronunciation teaching.” The diagnosis conducted by the author aimed to isolate phonetic features of PolishEnglish which are perceived as most foreign and most irritating by a selected group of the inhabitants of Scotland. The results allowed for establishing a hierarchy of phonetic aspects responsible for the listeners’ judgments and drawing conclusions with regard to phonetic priorities in the teaching of English to Poles, and emigrants to Scotland in particular. The choice of Scottish as the judges in the study was motivated by the recent massive emigration from Poland to the British Isles. Consequently, Scottish native speakers have become important interlocutors to a great many Poles who have settled temporarily or permanently abroad. As Bayley (2000, 289) ascertains, “acquisition needs to be judged not in terms of the standard language but in terms of the varieties with which learners are in most frequent contact.” In this case priorities made for people who decide to emigrate should be established in strict adherence to what a target group of native speakers regards acceptable.

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2. The empirical study The main goal of the study was to establish the hierarchy of most accented and most annoying features of Polish-accented English. It was hoped that with the obtained data it would be possible to provide tips as to which phonetic features should be prioritized in teaching pronunciation to Poles who have settled or intend to settle in Scotland. The author also believes that the outcome of the experiment can increase Polish migrants’ motivation to improve their English pronunciation. As Kenworthy (1987, 8) observes, learners’ lack of concern about phonetics may stem from the fact that “they are simply not aware that the way they speak is resulting in difficulty, irritation or misunderstanding for the listener.” Moreover, “once deficiencies in the perceptions of language are pinpointed, speakers of this language can alter the way in which they speak in order to best fit into the mainstream society” (Giles and Billings 2004). The secondary aim of the present study was to investigate to what extent the listeners’ variety of English influences their perception of Polish-accented English. Standard Scottish English (hence SSE) has fewer vowels in its inventory than RP (among others: no long ‘schwa’, no centring diphthongs, no distinction between the following pairs: /æ/ and /a:/, /ᖲ/ and /u:/, /ᢍ/ and /ᖜ:/). SSE is a rhotic accent, which overlaps with a rather heavy tendency among Polish learners to pronounce whenever spelt. Further characteristics of SSE which appear in Polish-accented English include the final devoicing of lenis obstruents and no (or light) aspiration of stressed fortis plosives.

2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants Twenty six Scottish listeners from Glasgow (16 females, 10 males) have participated in the experiment. Their age-span is between 20 and 50, with a vast majority (84%) aged 20-35. All participants refer to their own accent as “Scottish.” With the exception of three (11.5%) they all have conversed in English with Polish people at least once. They report having talked to many (42%) or a few (46%) Poles. As far as frequency of exchanges in English with the Polish is concerned, 69% of the Scottish raters interact with Poles regularly (daily – 15.3%, a few times weekly – 30.7% or monthly – 23%), whereas 23% does it seldom. 7.6% of the participants reported no regular contact with the Polish. We can conclude that, on the whole, our judges are not unfamiliar with Polish-accented

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English. Nevertheless, their experience and exposure are limited and definitely smaller than if they resided in Poland and had a constant contact with Poles on a daily basis in a variety of settings. 2.1.2. Procedure The data were collected between June and September 2010 in Glasgow and its vicinity. The listeners were exposed to an extract read out by a Polish student whose speech was marked with a heavy Polish accent. Having done that, they were provided with a list of 20 phonetic problems typical of Polish English which appeared in the recording. The Scottish raters were asked to decide to what extent these features contribute to the degree of perceived foreign-accentedness and irritation they cause. Many listening sessions had to be organized as it turned out impossible to gather all the participants in one place at the same time. However, care was taken to ensure the best quality of the material and good conditions of reproduction (secluded places) each time the experiment was conducted. The informants received a small financial gratification for completing the survey. 2.1.3. Instruments The speech sample employed in the present study is a text (Appendix 1) read out by a Polish native speaker (a female, aged 26). The material contains segmental and prosodic inaccuracies typical of Polish-accented English. It was selected from a pool of ten speech samples by subjective evaluations of the present author and four other phonetically trained Polish teachers of English who classified the speaker’s accent as heavily foreign and confirmed that the twenty phonetic aspects undergoing evaluation were adequately salient. The questionnaire (Appendix 2) contains a descriptive list of 20 problems typical of Polish-accented English. Since our subjects are not phoneticians and are unlikely to understand specialized terminology, effort has been taken to formulate the notions as plainly as possible. This descriptive way of conveying phonetic phenomena is expected to be effective because the subjects fill in the questionnaire directly after hearing the speech sample. For this reason the reference made in each of the definitions is not purely theoretical and does not strain the listeners’ imagination but places labels on what they have just heard and evokes particular utterances. Moreover, most descriptions are accompanied with examples from the texts previously heard and, additionally, the subjects

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are permitted to listen to the recording again.A 5-point Likert scale has been adopted as is frequently the case in similar research (e.g. Bongaerts et al. 1995; Munro et al. 1996; Thompson 1991; Gonet and PietroĔ 2004). The scale is accompanied with descriptive equivalents so that the listeners know what each number stands for.

2.2. Results Since in our study the variables are not in normal distribution, the application of any parametric test was precluded. Therefore, in order to accomplish the objective and obtain the most reliable results, the distribution of the scores was taken into consideration. A one-proportion test was performed for each of the variables, i.e. we calculated the number of scores below and above or equal 4 and compared the proportions within each group. The point of reference was set at 4, since in our scale this value refers to almost no degree of foreign accent (4 = ‘close to native’) and no annoyance (4 = ‘pleasant to listen to’). It was assumed that if at least 50% of the assigned rates are below 4, a given feature contributes to the impression of foreign accent in Polish-English and arouses the listeners’ annoyance. Analogically, if at least 50% of scores are equal or above 4, then a given feature is not a marker of foreign accent and does not cause annoyance. As can be seen in Table 12–1, in all the investigated variables the number of scores below 4 exceeds 50% (the second column), which means they all contribute to the impression of foreign accent in Polish English. They are arranged in a descending order with those most indicative of a foreign accent at the top of the list. In the next columns to the right the percentage of scores within the categories 1-3 and 4-5 is juxtaposed. As can be observed in the last column, p < 0.05 for all the proportions, which indicates that the findings of our experiment are of high statistical significance and the null hypothesis can be rejected. In other words, the number of percentages in the two categories (1-3 and 4-5) can be attributed to systematic differences based on the variables used in the study rather than to chance fluctuations. After dividing the features according to the biggest frequency of scores at 1-3 or 4-5, the distribution of the listeners’ scores was analyzed in order to establish which features fall into which category within 1-3, i.e. which of them correspond to ‘heavily foreign’ / ‘very annoying,’ ‘moderately foreign’ / ‘moderately annoying,’ ‘slightly foreign’ / ‘a bit annoying.’ This was done in order to establish the hierarchy of most foreign-accented and most annoying phonetic properties of Polish-English.

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Table 12–1. The outcome of the One-proportion test for accentedness Accentedness Spelling-based errors No /i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ contrast Plosive insertion after angma Incorrect word-stress Incorrect rhythm No vowel reduction Substitutions of palatoalveolars No weak forms Substitutions of dental fricatives Trilled pronunciation of frictionless continuant No /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/ contrast No /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/ contrast Substitutions of glottal fricative No /ԥ:/ vs. /e/ contrast Incorrect intonation in interrogative sentences Final devoicing of lenis obstruents Rhotic pronunciation No /u:/ vs. /ᖲ/ contrast Incorrect intonation No aspiration

One-proportion test (1-3)>50% 1-3 (%) 4-5 (%) Sig. (1-tailed) 96.15 3.85 0.000 96.15 3.85 0.000 96.15 3.85 0.000 92.31 7.69 0.000 92.31 7.69 0.000 92.31 7.69 0.000 92.31

7.69

0.000

92.31

7.69

0.000

92.31

7.69

0.000

88.46

11.54

0.000

88.46 88.46

11.54 11.54

0.000 0.000

84.62

15.38

0.000

84.62

15.38

0.000

84.62

15.38

0.000

84.62

15.38

0.000

80.77 76.92 69.23 57.69

19.23 23.08 30.77 42.31

0.000 0.002 0.022 0.216

Among the features which play the most significant role in creating a foreign accent we find spelling-induced errors, the neutralization of the /i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ contrast and the plosive insertion after angma. Other features within most foreign-accented include both segments and suprasegments: consonantal substitutions (/ᣋ/, /ᣎ/, /ð/, /ș/) and distorted rhythm together with aspects giving rise to it, i.e. the lack of vowel reduction, no weak forms and incorrect word-stress. The properties of Polish-accented English which strengthen the impression of foreign accent to a lesser extent encompass the failure to

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maintain other vocalic contrasts (/ԥ:/ vs. /e/, /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/, /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/, /u:/ vs. /ᖲ/), several consonantal problems: trilled articulation of /r/ together with its distribution (rhotic pronunciation), substitutions of the glottal fricative with its velar variant and the final devoicing of lenis obstruents as well as one prosodic aspect: incorrect intonation in interrogative sentences. At the very bottom of the hierarchy we find the lack of aspiration of fortis plosives and incorrect intonation. These two features are the least significant in creating the impression of foreign accent in Polish English. Below the results of the One-proportion test for annoyance are presented. Table 12–2. The outcome of the One-proportion test for annoyance One-proportion test (1-3)>50% Annoyance Spelling-based errors No /i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ contrast Plosive insertion after angma Substitutions of dental fricative Substitutions of palato-alveolars No /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/ contrast Incorrect word-stress Incorrect rhythm No /ԥ:/ vs. /e/ contrast No /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/ contrast No vowel reduction Final devoicing of lenis obstruents Substitutions of glottal fricative Incorrect intonation in interrogative sentences No weak forms Trilled articulation of frictionless continuant Incorrect intonation No /u:/ vs. /ᖲ/ contrast Rhotic pronunciation No aspiration

1-3 (%)

4-5 (%)

61.54 61.54 57.69 53.85 53.85 53.85 50.00 50.00 50.00 46.15 46.15 46.15 46.15

38.46 38.46 42.31 46.15 46.15 46.15 50.00 50.00 50.00 53.85 53.85 53.85 53.85

Sig. (1-tailed) 0.118 0.118 0.216 0.347 0.347 0.347 0.500 0.500 0.500 0.653 0.653 0.653 0.653

42.31

57.69

0.784

42.31

57.69

0.784

42.31

57.69

0.784

42.31 38.46 38.46 34.62

57.69 61.54 61.54 65.38

0.784 0.882 0.882 0.945

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In Table 12–2 in the first column the variables are arranged in a descending order with those most annoying at the top of the list. In the next column to the right the percentage of scores within the two categories (1-3 and 4-5) was included. The last column on the right displays the p values for the calculated proportions. In all cases p > 0.005, which means that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected and the conclusions we draw cannot be spread onto the whole population. Only in 6 variables the number of scores below 4 was bigger than 50%; in 14 variables the rates above 4 amounted to 50% or more, which means that the majority of Polish-English phonetic features are not annoying to the Scottish judges and none of them is considered ‘very annoying’ or ‘moderately annoying.’ Among the most irritating properties of Polish-English pronunciation we find five segmental aspects and mispronunciations rooted in spelling, all of which are ‘a bit annoying.’ They include the plosive insertion after angma, the neutralization of two vocalic oppositions (/i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ /and /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/) as well as consonantal substitutions of /ș/, /ð/, /ᣋ/ and /ᣎ/. Features which do not evoke the listeners’ irritation encompass segmental and prosodic aspects such as the neutralization of vocalic contrasts and consonantal substitutions as well as shifted word-stress, no vowel reduction, no weak forms, distorted rhythm and incorrect intonation. Failure to maintain two vocalic contrasts (/ԥ:/ vs. /e/ and /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/) and substitutions of /ᢙ/, /r/ and the final devoicing of lenis obstruents are not at all annoying to the Scottish judges. Three more features, no contrast between /u:/ and /ᖲ/), rhoticity and the lack of aspiration in fortis plosives complete the list, having obtained the biggest number of scores above 4 (more than 60%). The table below juxtaposes the phonetic properties of Polish-English which contribute to the impression of foreign accent with those which evoke the listeners’ annoyance. The shading has been used to highlight fourteen features of Polish pronunciation in English which are insignificant in causing irritation despite being indicative of foreignaccent.

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Table 12–3. The hierarchy of Polish-English phonetic features with respect to accentedness and annoyance Scale

Annoyance

Accentedness Spelling-based errors Plosive insertion after angma No /i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ contrast

1. Heavily foreign 1.Very annoying

Incorrect word-stress

2. Moderately foreign 2. Moderately annoying

No /ԥ:/ vs. /e/ contrast

No vowel reduction Substitutions of dental fricative Substitutions of palatoalveolars Incorrect rhythm

No /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/ contrast Spelling-based errors

3. Slightly foreign 3. A bit annoying

Plosive insertion after angma No /i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ contrast Substitutions of dental fricatives Substitutions of palatoalveolars

Substitution of glottal fricative No /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/ contrast Trilled articulation of frictionless continuant No weak forms Incorrect intonation in interrogative sentences Final devoicing of lenis obstruents Incorrect intonation

No /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/ contrast

No /u:/ vs. /ᖲ / contrast Rhotic pronunciation No aspiration

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4. Close to native and 5. no foreign accent 4. Pleasant to listen to and 5. not at all annoying

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Incorrect word-stress No /ԥ:/ vs. /e/ contrast No /a:/ vs. /ᖴ/ contrast No vowel reduction Final devoicing of lenis obstruents Substitutions of glottal fricative Incorrect rhythm Incorrect intonation in interrogative sentences No weak forms Trilled articulation of frictionless continuant No /u:/ vs. /ᖲ / contrast Incorrect intonation Rhotic pronunciation No aspiration

As can be observed, the lists of most accented and most annoying aspects of Polish pronunciation in English share three initial elements: spelling-based errors, the insertion of plosive after /ƾ/ and no distinction between /i:/ and /ᢛ/. Similarly, no contrast between /u:/ vs. /ᖲ/, the lack of aspiration, incorrect intonation and rhoticity obtained a low position in both categories. The rest of the variables is distributed a bit differently in both groups, e.g. no contrasts between /ԥ:/ and /e/ is at the bottom of the list in annoyance column while being very high in the accentedness category. Incorrect rhythm, shifted word-stress contribute to impression of foreign accent, whereas they are located much lower among the features arousing annoyance. On the whole, the raters turned out harsher while evaluating accentedness than annoyance, i.e. the list of features contributing to the impression of foreign accent is longer and contains 14 aspects which are not irritating to the native speakers of Scottish English. The following six features which are indicative of foreign accent are also annoying: plosive insertion after angma, spelling-based errors, the neutralization of two vocalic oppositions (/i:/ vs. /ᢛ/ /and /ᖜ:/ vs. /ᢍ/) and the substitutions of the dental fricatives and the palatoalveolars. Importantly, no elements of Polish-accented English were considered ‘very annoying’ or ‘moderately annoying’ and none of them causes irritation without being considered foreign. Again, this outcome confirms the findings of previous research (Flege 1998; Piske et al. 2000; Gallardo del

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Puerto et al. 2009), namely that foreign accent tends to be evaluated more harshly than other measurements.

3. Discussion and implications On the basis of the above outcome of the experiment it is possible to formulate phonetic priorities in teaching English to Poles who intend to communicate with Scottish native speakers. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

eliminating spelling-based errors; vowels: [i:] and [ᢛ], [ԥ:] and [e],[a:] and [ᖴ]; consonants: [ƾ], [ð] and [ș], [ᣎ] and [ᣋ]; word-stress; rhythm; weak forms; intonation (also in interrogative sentences); distinction between [ᖜ:] vs. [ᢍ] Æ absent from SSE distinction between [u:] and [ᖲ] Æ absent from SSE [ᢙ] and [ᢦ]; non-rhotic pronunciation Æ absent from SSE maintaining voicing of final lenis obstruents Æabsent from SSE aspiration of stressed fortis plosives Æ absent from SSE

The very top of the list is occupied by eliminating spelling-induced errors. It is worth noting that this outcome is congruent with the findings of empirical research conducted by Szpyra-Kozáowska (2013:28) who makes a claim that “whole words prone to be commonly mispronounced by language learners” should constitute the main focus of phonetic instruction. Since one of the reasons for such mispronunciations is rooted in spelling interference, undertaking practice of whole words is a very good path to follow. Nevertheless, segmental and prosodic aspects are not too be neglected according to our group of judges. Among the features which should be given prominence in teaching phonetics to Polish learners we find both vowels (/i:/, /ᢛ/, /ԥ:/, /e/, /a:/, /ᖴ/, /ᢍ/, /ᖜ:/, /u:/ and /ᖲ/), and consonants (/ƾ/, /ð/, /ș/, /ᣎ/, /ᣋ/, /ᢦ/ and /ᢙ/) as well as prosody (correct rhythm, intonation, weak forms and word-stress). Non-rhotic pronunciation, maintaining voicing of final lenis obstruents and aspiration of fortis stressed plosives should be practised by Polish learners of English as well. Yet, these features have a low position in the list of phonetic priorities. The raters’ choices can be in part explained by their linguistic background and a principle of familiarity according to which people

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develop more positive attitudes towards things they can identify with (Dalton-Puffer et al. 1997). Scottish English is characterized by “generally light” aspiration of /p, t, k/ in stressed positions (Scobbie et al. 2006, 11) or complete lack of it (Trudgill and Hannah 1994) and our judges do not consider this aspect of Polish-accented English a considerable marker of foreign accent. Similarly, of all vowel contrasts strengthening the impression of accentedness the least significant are the distinctions between /ᖜ/ vs. /ᢍ/ and /u:/ vs. /ᖲ/, also absent from the majority of types of SSE. Rhotic pronunciation in Polish English does not sound foreign to the Scottish judges either. The trilled articulation of /r/ was considered slightly foreign even though stereotypically it is a feature of Scottish English. Yet, in reality a trill is rather sporadic in SSE and the listeners’ evaluations can be interpreted as an attempt to counter the widespread stereotype. Just as in the case of accentedness, the listeners tend to refer to their own variety when deciding on factors arousing annoyance. Those least irritating (lack of aspiration and pronouncing ‘r’ in all contexts) are salient characteristics of Scottish English and absent from RP. Final devoicing of obstruents is among least annoying and least foreign features and it is also characteristic of Standard Scottish English (Gordeeva and Scobbie 2004). It is worth noting that this particular deviation has often been treated as an error that “creates a very strong impression of foreign accent” (Roach 1991, 125). It can be thus concluded that our raters do not find foreign or bothersome certain properties of non-native features they themselves produce. While this finding is good news to Polish learners of English, it would be too far-fetched to actually pose a claim that this always holds true. It is sufficient to consider plosive insertion after the velar nasal. The Scottish judges assigned the harshest scores both in accentedness and irritation to this aspect even though in their own accent “ejective variants of word-final stops are common (typically [k], especially after [ƾ]” (Scobbie et al. 2006, 11).

4. Conclusion Due to the limited scope of the study as well as inevitable methodological shortcomings, all the conclusions drawn here should not be treated as absolute and require further investigation. Yet, we believe that even at this point some valid observations can be made. To begin with, it is impossible to claim that either segmental or suprasegmental features should be the main focus in teaching pronunciation to Poles.

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The diagnosis has revealed that the impression of Polish accent in English is created by both sound substitutions and inaccurate prosody (syllabletimed rhythm in particular). The primary source of foreign accent and annoyance evoked in the listeners are mispronunciations rooted in spelling and they should constitute the core of phonetic instruction. The data reported here demonstrate that the Scottish raters show a tendency to evaluate more leniently those properties of Polish-accented English which are also found in their own phonetic inventory. This corroborates the statement that native speakers’ norms are not uniform or constant (Piazza 1980) and that the judgments of accentedness and irritation are influenced by the listeners’ linguistic background.

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Appendix 1 When a student decides to go to study abroad, he might have many questions and more than one doubt. Where should he live? Share a flat, or look for a bed in a dormitory? Should he spend all of his time just studying in front of the computer? He’d better calm down, because marks are not the most important thing. He should live life to the full and take advantage of the many social and sport events which are offered. At first it is not easy for him to be comfortable in manner and confident in speech. He feels like a fool or comes across as a rare bird. Little by little he spots what kind of clothing is usually worn to be casually dressed for classes. He also learns to choose the language and customs right for various situations. But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited feeling doesn’t develop fast, does it? (An extract adapted from Prator 1985).

Appendix 2

Aspect of pronunciation

1. their speech sounds flat and monotonous 2. they ‘chop’ sentences making unnatural pauses between groups of words 3. they raise their voice excessively when asking questions 4. they do not make a difference between vowels in words like calm and come

How foreign? 1 = very foreign, 2 = moderately foreign 3 = slightly foreign 4 = close to native 5 = no foreign accent

How annoying? 1 = very annoying 2 = moderately annoying 3 = a bit annoying 4 = pleasant to listen to 5 = not at all annoying

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

210

5. they often accentuate a wrong syllable in a word, e.g. say COMputer instead of comPUTER or DEVelopment instead of deVElopment, Event instead of eVEnt 6. they sometimes put too much emphasis on some words in a sentence, e.g. Should he spend all OF his time just studying?; He also learns TO choose the language and customs right for various situations. 7. they do not make a difference between vowels in words like sport and spot 8. they often pronounce words as they are spelt, e.g. doubt [daubt], calm [kalm] 9. they do not make a difference between vowels in words like leave and live 10. they pronounce [k] in kind or [t] in time too weakly, with no extra breath 11. the way they pronounce [r] sound, e.g. in right, various or across

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1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

Priorities in Teaching English Pronunciation to Poles

12. they do not make a difference between vowels in words like full and fool 14. they pronounce [h] sound too harshly, e.g. in house, his or he 15. they pronounce ‘th’ in clothing as [v] in very, [d] in dog [z] in zebra 16. they put a vowel between two final consonants e. g. custom as [kᖴstom] 17. they pronounce is as [is] or spend as [spent] 18. they pronounce the underlined part in should, speech, casually, just too harshly 19. they do not make a difference between vowels in words like bed and bird 20. they say sitting as [sittink], long as [lonk]

1 2 3 4 5

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1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5

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Dalton-Puffer, Christiane, Gunther Kaltenboeck and Ute Smit. 1997. “Learner Attitudes and L2 Pronunciation in Austria.” World Englishes 16:115-128. Derwing, Tracey M. and Murray J. Munro. 2005. “Second Language Accent and Pronunciation Teaching: A Research-Based Approach.” TESOL Quarterly 39:379-397. Giles, Howard and Andrew C. Billings. 2004. “Assessing Language Attitudes. Speaker Evaluation Studies.” In The Handbook of Applied Linguistics, edited by Alan Davies and Catherine Elder, 187-203. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Flege, James E. and Robert Hammond. 1981. “Speakers’ Awareness of Some Non-segmental Phonetic Aspects of Foreign Accent.” In MidAmerica Linguistics Conference Papers, edited by Michael Henderson, 145-163. Kansas: University of Kansas. Flege, James E. and Wieke Eefting. 1987. “Cross-Language Switching in Stop Consonant Perception and Production by Dutch Speakers of English.” Speech and Communication 6:185-202. Flege, James E. 1988. “Factors Affecting Degree of Perceived Foreign Accent in English Sentences.” Acoustical Journal of America 84:70-7. Gallardo del Puerto, Francisco, Esther Gomez Lacabex, García and Maria L. Lecumberri. 2009. “Testing the Effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning in Foreign Language Contexts: the Assessment of English Pronunciation.” In Content and Language Integrated Learning, edited by Yolanda Ruiz de Zarobe and Rosa Maria Jiménez Catalán, 63-80. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Gonet, Wiktor and Grzegorz PietroĔ. 2004. “The Polish Tongue in the English Ear.” In Dydaktyka fonetyki jĊzyka obcego IV. Konferencja w Mikorzynie, 10-12.5.2004, edited by Wáodzimierz Sobkowiak and Ewa Waniek-Klimczak, 56-65. Konin: Wydawnictwo PWSZ. Gordeeva, Olga B. and James. M. Scobbie. 2004. “Non-normative Preaspiration of Voiceless Fricatives in Scottish English: A Comparison with Swedish Preaspiration.” Paper presented at the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP), Cambridge, England, March 24-26. Ingram, Patreese D. 2009. “Are Accents One of the Last Acceptable Areas for Discrimination?” Journal of Extension 47: 1-5. Jilka, Mathiaas. 2000. “Testing the Contribution of Prosody to the Perception of Foreign Accent.” In New Sounds 2000. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on the Acquisition of SecondLanguage Speech, edited by James Allan and Jonathan Leather, 199 207. Klagenfurt: University of Klagenfurt.

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Johansson, Stig. 1975. Papers in Contrastive Linguistics and Language Testing. Lund: Gleerup. —. 1978. Studies of Error Gravity: Native Reactions to Errors Produced by Swedish Learners of English. Göteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Kalin, Rudolf and Donald Rayko. 1980. “The Significance of Speech in the Job Interview.” In The Social and Psychological Contexts of Language, edited by Robert N. St Clair and Howard Giles, 39-50. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Kenworthy, Joanne. 1987. Teaching English Pronunciation. London and New York: Longman. Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997. English with an Accent. Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. Devon: Biddles Ltd. Magen, Harriet S. 1998. “The Perception of Foreign-Accented Speech.” Journal of Phonetics 26: 381-400. Piazza, Linda Gaylord. 1980. “French Tolerance for Grammatical Errors Made by Americans.” Modern Language Journal 64: 422-427. Munro, Murray J., James E. Flege and Ian R. A. Mackay. 1996. “The Effects of Age of Second Language Learning on the Production of English Vowels.” Applied Psycholinguistics 17: 313-334. Roach, Peter. 1991. English Phonetics and Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scobbie, James M., Olga B. Gordeeva and Ben Matthews. 2006. “Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology, an Overview.” Speech Science Research Centre Working Paper WP-7. Accessed May, 2012 http://www.qmu.ac.uk/casl/pubs/Scobbie_et_al%202006%20WP7.pdf. Szpyra-Kozáowska, Jolanta. 2013. “On the Irrelevance of Sounds and Prosody in Foreign-accented English.” In Teaching and Researching English Accents in Native and Non-native Speakers, edited by Ewa Waniek-Klimczak and Linda R. Shockey, 15-29. Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Thompson, Irene. 1991. “Foreign Accents Revisited: The English Pronunciation of Russian Immigrants.” Language Learning 41:177-204. Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah. 1994. International English. A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith. van del Doel, Rias. 2006. “How Friendly are the Natives? An Evaluation of Native-speaker Judgements of Foreign accented British and American English.” PhD diss, the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN MUSICAL APTITUDE AND L2 SPEECH PERCEPTION: A STUDY OF WORD RECOGNITION BY ADULT STUDENTS OF ENGLISH TOMASZ NIEDħWIEDħ

Abstract Musical aptitude is hardly a necessary component of linguistic acquisition but it may facilitate acquisition of some aspects of L2 phonology and speech perception. This conclusion can be drawn from a study of the auditory linguistic competence of 79 university students of English categorised according to musical ability. The participants were assessed by means of two word recognition tests involving identification of items in isolation and in connected speech. Significant differences were found in the performance of the participants, with the musical ones gaining an overall perceptual advantage. The musical students excelled at word recognition in isolated speech, demonstrating superior acquisition of L2 phonemes and citation forms of words. However, the auditory edge of the musical participants in the test of connected speech including word recognition in reduced, coarticulated speech proved significantly smaller, most likely due to incompleteness of their phonological acquisition. Their word recognition was inhibited by inexperience with non-citation or less familiar phonetic forms of words and the phonological processes of English casual speech, rather than inaccuracy of their perception. Thus, musical ability can be associated with greater precision of perception in language, which can lead to some gains in L2 phonological acquisition, e.g. mastery of L2 phonemes. However, to fully apply their auditory potential, musical and the more perceptive students would also need to receive comprehensive aural training in phonostylistically varied

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connected speech, including the phonetic and phonological processes it involves. This has broader implications for L2 training in which the right balance between emphasis on precision of perception and comprehensive phonological acquisition including casual connected speech should be maintained. After all, the ultimate goal of speech perception should be understanding natural speech and not perception of phonetic detail.

1. Introduction It is commonly held that people who have an ear for music are generally better at learning languages. If this adage is true, why do children seem to learn their native language irrespective of the level of their musical aptitude? Or, how can we account for the fact that people with little or no music aptitude are also able to learn a foreign language successfully? After all, not all successful foreign language professionals, e.g. teachers, translators and interpreters, are musically gifted, which can be determined without extensive empirical testing. Even a simple selfrating questionnaire among them providing a subjective judgement of their musical skills would be enough to conclude that not all linguistically gifted people are musical. Given this common sense evidence, it is tempting to conclude that the popular belief that musical ability matters in L2 acquisition is a myth. There is, however, a large body of scientific evidence that supports the music-language relationship, pointing not only to structural but also functional similarities between the two domains which stem from the generally accepted position that both music and language are universal among all humans and that they are specific to humans. Early evidence on the music-language relationship dates back to the beginning of the 20th century when psychometric tests began to be commonly used, making it possible to compare various cognitive capacities, including music and language. The most prominent researchers of that time in this area include Revesz, Schoen and, most of all, Seashore whose tests of musical ability continue to be used in research even today. Numerous other cognitive psychologists explored parallelisms between the two human cognitive abilities, providing evidence for the overlap of musical and linguistic capacities. Studies on children and adults suggested that musical aptitude and/or training have benefits for such cognitive domains as language and mathematics, pointing to the structural as well as functional differences between the brains of musical and non-musical individuals. Both neural and behavioural evidence has been offered on the relations, affinities and contrasts in the processing of music and language

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and their shared neural resources (Zatorre et al. 2002; Peretz and Coltheart 2003; Patel 2003; 2012; Sloboda 2005; Milovanov 2009). Today, modern neuroimaging techniques support the psychometric and neuropsychological research devoted to exploring associations between music and language. Some brain regions typically associated with language processing, such as Broca’s area, have been found to be also involved in the processing of music (Maess et. al. 2001; Levitin and Menon 2003). Much attention has been devoted to the modularity of the human brain and the two cognitive functions providing evidence for the existence of specialised processing components and mechanisms in music and language. Research into brainstem response in musicians has found that musical experience can affect the nervous system and music can tune the brain for auditory fitness, giving an edge in auditory processing (Wong et al. 2007; Kraus 2011; Skoe and Kraus 2010). Based on numerous studies, it has been suggested that music experience can modify brain activity, for instance, affecting the laterality of the musical and linguistic processing in the human brain. Brain organization can be modulated by diligent practice, for instance, through development of music expertise, which can have consequences for hemispheric lateralisation and functioning. It has been found that manipulating and processing complex sounds in music by musicians or people undergoing musical training may provide an advantage for neural plasticity and learning. (Hugdahl 2000; Milovanov at al. 2007; Strait et al. 2009; 2010; 2011). As seen above, musical aptitude is often associated with improved auditory processing at both cognitive and sensory levels. Musical aptitude, whether inborn or developed through musical training, has often been associated with linguistic development and the cognitive capacities it is related to. Musical practice and performance and the enhanced processing of music-related sounds it involves is said to improve language processing (Schon et al. 2004; Marques et al. 2007; Moreno et al. 2009; Kraus and Chandrasekaran 2010). In several correlative studies it has been shown that individuals with musical aptitude performed better in various areas, such as general intelligence (Schellenberg 2004), verbal memory (Chan et al. 1998; Ho et al. 2003; Franklin et al. 2008), phonology (Anvari et al. 2002; Slevc and Miyake 2006; Golestani and Zatorre 2009), temporal auditory and visual information processing (Rammsayer and Altenmeuller 2006; Strait et al. 2010; 2011; Kraus 2011), all of which can be considered relevant from the point of view of linguistic competence. Much of the research on the music-language relationship explores the link between musical aptitude and selected aspects of second-language

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acquisition and proficiency. It is natural that a large part of this tends to focus on the auditory domain. The reputedly shared resources for music and language within the auditory modality have been the subject of numerous experimental studies which indicate various links between musical ability and both receptive and productive L2 proficiency, i.e. speech perception and production. Musical aptitude and/or training has been argued to constitute one of the individual differences or factors contributing to language learning, especially the development of L2 auditory proficiency (Morgan 1992; Milovanov at al. 2004, 2007, 2010; Gilleece 2006; Slevc and Miyake 2006; Pastuszek-LipiĔska 2007; Milovanov 2009; Milovanov and Tervaniemi 2011). Despite the large and still growing body of evidence on the musiclanguage affinity from often diverse branches of science, it is surprising how little we still know about the nature of the relation between musical aptitude and second language acquisition, even in the seemingly most cognate auditory areas such as speech production and perception, especially from the point of view of L2 phonological acquisition. Many questions about the relationship between musical aptitude and speech perception remain unanswered, for instance those relating to the sources of differential success in the perception and acquisition of L2 speech. Even less is known about the relationship between musical aptitude and perception of phonostylistically varied and reduced speech typical of casual English found in a natural native language environment. Much of the research is limited to perception of discrete sounds or isolated words in their citation forms practised commonly in the L2 classroom and fails to account for the real value of the alleged auditory advantage of musical L2 learners in real-life situations, e.g. perception of casual, conversational English. For instance, it is still not clear how musical aptitude affects phonological processing, whether musical students with good segmental phonology and word recognition in isolated speech (citation forms) demonstrate a similar auditory advantage in connected speech, in which words significantly deviate from the canonical forms used and acquired mostly during formal L2 language instruction. For instance, there is the possibility that the phonetic forms precisely acquired by the more perceptive L2 learners and their greater attention to phonetic detail will make it more difficult to deal with less familiar, reduced forms of connected speech making them less tolerant to speech variation. On the other hand, there is the possibility that, given adequate exposure and training, the auditory advantage shown in the acquisition of the phonemes of English and citation forms of words will be useful in the acquisition and perception of the more advanced, often heavily reduced,

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forms of conversational English, making musical students better also in this area. The lack of conclusive knowledge about L2 speech processing differences between musical and non-musical adult students of English as a foreign language has provoked the empirical study described below. The study is also a product of numerous relevant research questions about the relationship between musical aptitude and L2 phonological acquisition as demonstrated by speech perception. The questions arise from both experimental and observational data found in numerous publications as well as the author’s own research into the subject matter and his learning and teaching experience. The most relevant ones include: Does musical aptitude, which is said to provide an auditory advantage, correlate positively with L2 speech perception and acquisition of L2 phonology? If so, what is the nature of the correlation, and how does musical aptitude affect L2 speech perception and acquisition of L2 phonology, including perception and acquisition of casual speech? And, can musical aptitude be considered a universal individual difference positively contributing to L2 speech perception and acquisition of L2 phonology? Answers to at least some of these questions might cast some new light on individual variance in L2 proficiency, especially individual differences in speech perception and acquisition of L2 phonology, with implications for foreign language teaching methods, especially of the crucial productive and perceptive skills, such as pronunciation or listening comprehension. The study’s outcome might also contribute to a better understanding of the fundamental issue of individual differences in the processing of L2 speech–how L2 listeners process speech depending on various factors, such as, for instance, musical aptitude.

2. Method An empirical study into auditory linguistic competence of adult students of English classified according to musical ability was conducted with the use of auditory testing in music and language.

2.1. Participants Originally, the study group involved a total of 106 Polish students in the first year of English Philology (a full time ESL programme) at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. However, the final number of participants included in the data analysis and account of the results presented below amounted to 79 due to missing data from some of

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the subjects who had failed to complete all the experiment tasks owing to absenteeism or other reasons. The final study group (N=79) included 63 young women and 16 young men, a gender ratio which reflected the typical population of the English language programme rather than the requirements or preferences of the study. Consequently, the gender factor was not accounted for as the majority of students were female. This should not be considered a serious issue as in most studies of musical abilities the gender factor is not considered relevant. The group was fairly homogenous in respect to the following control factors which might be considered relevant: age, general L2 (English) proficiency and musical background. They were of similar age (19-23) and presented a fairly similar, advanced level of English following their uniform nation-wide final secondary school examinations held by the state, the same university admission process, and two full semesters of extensive university ESL education including training and regular testing in English phonetics and phonology. The students had a mostly similar music background – they underwent general music education in their primary schools where music is part of the national curriculum in Poland1.

2.2. Instruments and procedure 2.2.1. Music and language tests A battery of pre-recorded auditory tests was applied to obtain data on the music-language relationship under investigation. The instruments were selected with the aim of comprehensively assessing the participants’ auditory aptitude and competence in the domains of language and music, and included three auditory tests – one in the area of music and two in language. The tests were accompanied by a questionnaire including basic questions about the participants, such as age, sex, music background. Music Musical aptitude of the participants was determined by means of The Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA) by Gordon (1989) – a standardized test of stabilised music aptitude. AMMA was specifically designed and is recommended for use with college and university students. Being an aptitude rather than an ability test, AMMA can also be used with students who have had no formal instruction or experience in music. According to its author, a student is able to score high on the test irrespective of whether he or she can play a music instrument, sing, read

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notation, or has taken music theory courses. All these features make AMMA suitable for the present purposes. Language The language test battery comprised two very different word recognition tests designed to measure the participants’ speech perception and phonological competence in isolation and in connected speech. The first language test (LT1) was developed to evaluate the participants’ L2 word recognition in isolated speech. The test consisted of 100 minimal pairs of words presented in isolation where vocalic or consonantal contrasts provided a perceptual cue to word recognition. Students had to recognize and indicate on the test sheet one of the words in each pair, for instance: green vs. grin, hole vs. hall or sing vs. sin. LT1 is, in fact, a typical phoneme discrimination test applied commonly in the ESL classroom, especially in ear training and pronunciation classes where emphasis is placed on accurate discrimination and mastery of English phonemes. Acquisition of English phonemes was also the focal element of the phonetics and phonology course the study participants had attended in the first year of their university education preceding their participation in the experiment. Tests like LT1 have a number of advantages, especially in language instruction: they are easy to develop and administer, they focus specifically on the contrastive language sounds under discussion, and finally, they isolate perception from comprehension, which means that a student’s auditory competence can be evaluated more accurately. Although useful from the point of view of L2 teaching, such tests do not measure speech perception and phonological competence sufficiently for at least two reasons: they focus on citation forms which seldom occur in real speech and test competence at the segmental level only. It is obvious, then, that LT1 has severe limitations when it comes to comprehensive measurement of auditory language proficiency, e.g. performance in real casual speech as used by native speakers, and it does not fully reflect L2 phonological competence whose measure of attainment should not only be perception of single phonemes or citation forms of words but more advanced phonological skills – perception and understanding of the natural, fluent, phonostylistically varied speech of native speakers2. Consequently, the second language test applied in the study (LT2) was developed to examine the participants’ performance in connected speech. LT2 is based on two listening components of the well-known diagnostic tests: Oxford Placement Test 1 and Oxford Placement Test 2 by Dave

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Allan (1992). Out of 200 items, the 50 most perceptually challenging sentences containing examples of phonostylistically varied and reduced speech were selected to reflect the typical perceptual difficulties posed by English casual speech and phonostylistic variation, including contractions, weak forms, unstressed syllables, assimilations, elisions, ill-defined wordboundaries and distortions of the component words in common phrases resulting in phonetic forms which radically deviate from the canonical pronunciation typically presented in the classroom. The 50 minimal-pair sentences are formed in such a way that either of the options to be selected makes a sentence meaningful. For instance: 1. My sister says he’s | she’s a very nice person. 8. What we have here is essentially a fiscal | physical problem. 11. Do you know if she's Finnish | finished ? 18. I'd like you to be responsible for the personal | personnel side of the deal. 21. When I saw the train | terrain I realized I would never catch him. As can be seen, there is considerable variety among the test items, whose correct identification depends on the perception of various segmental and suprasegmental contrasts. In some cases, the number of phonostylistic processes involved results in massive homophony making it difficult to identify the main contrastive feature providing a cue for the identification of the token. Very often accuracy of phonemic perception is not enough to identify a given item correctly and at least implicit awareness of phonetic and phonological rules and processes or familiarity with a given phonetic form is necessary to succeed. Other relevant features of LT2 include a fast pace emulating natural fast speech, and limited context in order not to provide additional cues to semantic meaning. Sentences are not related to form larger texts and imply meaning, and the contrasts at segmental and suprasegmental levels very often co-occur making it difficult to specify what the cue to perception is. As with LT1, LT2 was meant to be a purely perceptive test where success depends on accuracy of perception –mostly local, bottom-up processing. However, even though bottom-up perception was favoured, one cannot exclude that sometimes participants made choices on the basis of different processing. A correlational comparison was made between results of the two language tools showing that LT1 and LT2 are very different and should not be expected to yield similar results (r=.30, p